Event Coverage Death of the Swap Meet

This Saturday. Getting bigger and better each year. No charge to enter for buyers and free parking. Standard space is still 5 bucks.

 

I'm 82 years old. I started buying used speed equipment in high school. while in the navy my dad sold all my stuff. I started all over. in 1990 I retired to enjoy the hobby and make it pay for itself. all was well then the California state board of equalization made all sellers fill out a tax form. all of a sudden there were no garage cleaners. then here comes e-bay. the last 5 years my buying and selling has really suffered. thru the years I bought lots of collectibles. last weekend I unloaded the car parts and took collectibles. I hope car parts come back, until then collectibles are king. thanks for listening. dt.

 

I used to be pretty regular at the swap meets in my area. Some years as a vendor, others just as a buyer.
Haven't really been to a swap in the past 4 years (young kids are hell on having free time). Was a vendor last month at the first spring swap of the year, usually a decent turn out. I was shocked... it was dead. Everyone scared by rain in the forecast and most of the vendors who showed up had junk. What used to be an all day swap was dead by 11am.
I was a motivated seller and basically had to twist arms to get stuff sold. People weren't even making offers, despite coming back two or three times to look.

 

Hello,

Big swap meets that once had only backyard garage clean out items and found old parts from desert area searches were interesting. (early Veteran's Stadium lot, Rose Bowl lots, Model T swap meets-Hamilton Bowl on PCH Long Beach, etc.) They were lively places and kudos to those that had old hot rod parts to sell and those that are on the hunt for such products. But, when they display them and the cost is more that a N.O.S. item at the local antique parts store, then it it no longer worth the time to spent on a hot, crowded day.

Yes, the cost has to display the availability of the item when found, such as mirror mounts from a 40 Ford Sedan Delivery or a full hood nose chrome unit, etc.
similar idea for open and closing… not the best idea, for sure.
For us, it was nice to find a handle or mount in “old” condition, but then we would have to get the treated and chromed. Now, to us, that upped the cost of the desert find. So, if the desert find was priced too high, then it was not worth our effort to buy it and then have it chromed many mile away from our houses in a suspicious industrial area.

So, sorry, but we cannot supplement the replacement find if it is going to be higher than a NOS item on sale. Even if it is not on sale, the cost of the old item and chrome procedure may not be worth the effort.

Jnaki

Then as supportive hot rod folks, we continued to attend those old swap meets until some reclaimed dealers set up their commercial displays and began under cutting those old parts that were for sale. So, goes the business. The more commercial dealers we did not like or had products we were not interested in began to multiply. That made the place too commercial and then it began to get rather blah, so my wife and I decided to stick with NOS dealers that had new stuff/ old stuff in almost new condition.

Plus, it was right around the corner from our mom’s house in the Westside of Long Beach and had plenty of old parts in their huge shop. When I broke the hood latch on our sedan delivery, I rigged the hood to stay shut, but was operable with a vise grip pinch. But, while we could have waited for the weekend swap meet with the hopes of someone having a semi good condition used handle, we just stopped at the Ford Parts Obsolete Store and bought a N.O.S. unit that fit perfectly and started a new life on our old sedan delivery.

 

Agreed. All my items are priced.

 

Just for conversations sake, and because I'm truly curious, on my table at the Lethbridge Swap Meet in February, I did have parts with no price, simply because I just wanted an offer. And, in addition, some of the guys who asked me about a price turned into a much longer conversation about the hobby.

I do understand, posting a price is the best way to go..if you have a price in mind. I didn't, so a few parts didn't have anything stuck on them. I was able to sell lots..I hope I wasn't one table you went by if you were there and were disappointed at my lack of sticky tags!!

 

I'm off to a very small local meet tomorrow, and just for the fun of it stuck a piece of masking tape on everything with a price, except the ten dollar books. Will this sales technique clear the table by noon, or have no effect what so ever? Details at 6:00

 

Swap meet was so small it really didn't matter if the items were priced or not, few people were able to pick the items up off the blue tarp. A friend that is four years older than me did buy a NOS rear fender, that made my day.

 

Was at a swap meet today. Set up and nothing was priced. Suburban chock full with large stuff and 5 bins of smalls. Sold 1/3 of inventory during the initial rush from 8am-10:30am at near retail.
After things slowed down priced all the remaining parts. From 10:30-2:00pm with still solid foot traffic until 1:00pm I sold 3 items which told me the serious buyers were there early and if interested had no issue asking about the price. The late arriving crowd was in it more for the walk.
If I missed any sales due to no price tags early I just take it as those who chose not to inquire were not intent about buying something.

 

One thing I have learned form going to Hershey last fall and Carlisle this spring is make sure to go in the beginning off the week not the tail end as most vendors pack up and leave on Friday especially if mother nature decides to rain on your parade. I will be taking days off to go earlier next time around.

 

I think I was the one guy at Hershey and Carlisle looking for those parts. I did score a set of 54 Merc taillight assemblies and some trim for my Sons car at Hershey super cheap. Only 55 Lincoln parts I found were some tune up parts and assembly manuals. Did get some wheel cylinders and brake hoses for the 55 at Carlisle though.

 

Swap meets. Sometimes you're the bug, others the windshield. It's all a treasure hunt, both ends whether you need something or just playing hunter/gatherer. Sometimes a profit shows up, sometimes you pay full retail plus expenses. Crap game at a minimum.

 

I'll leave all the parts I price tagged in the boxes for Hershey. Wife and grandkids can sell them while I'm out buying. Looked at the stuff in the crate I bought Sunday, NOTHING had a price tag. The Tag People must be some mythical keyboard group with no effect on real life.

Bob

 

Come on, guys. Nobody is saying "If you price your stuff, it will all sell" or "If you don't price your stuff, nothing will sell." The point is just that if you price your stuff, on balance you will sell more over time.

Bob points out another key benefit, which is that you can go shopping and whomever is left in charge knows what the heck you want for an item. God, how many times have I overheard those inane cell phone conversations: "Hey Joey, how much do you want for this light... the small one...no, not a headlight, smaller...I don't know, 3 inches maybe... it's chome...shit, I don't know if it's Ford...well, how close are you?...Oh, never mind, the guy left..."

But of course, having said all that, pricing your stuff is just a means of improving customer engagement. The biggest factors in making sales are desirability and prices of you stuff.

 

I'll never forget the smile and twinkle in my daughters eyes when I returned to my Hershey spot and she told me she had sold a Harley wheel for $25.00. a wheel I'd marked $125.00 and the DIRT BAG said it was $25.00. Chalk it up to life in the swap meet.

 

From my personal experiences of going to SoCal swap meets since the 90s, and there are plenty, I don't think more than 10% of the the stuff has a price on it; cars are a different matter.

 

Bob, I'm sorry you ran into a thief. That sucks.

What you say is true, and also applies to swap meets in the PNW over the 40 years I've been involved with them. But that doesn't mean what I'm saying about pricing isn't also true: All those vendors could've potentially sold more with the effort of pricing. And these days, with the general nature of swap meets changing, every little bit helps.

But each seller decides whether pricing is worth their time.

The worst are the guys who think they can look into the soul of each potential customer and use their mind power to glean exactly how high they'll go. There's a regular seller at PNW meets who does that. I swear, when he looks into my soul he sees an heir to the Rockefeller fortune.

 

7 pages and we haven’t determined if swap meets are dead or not LOL
Can we add a vote tally to this thread a simple yes or no would work.
Dan

 

the LSRU swap was ok... seen better, seen worse.

 

Alive and well. Just be cautious of the swap meets with an upside-down pineapple.

 

Hershey was really down last year, but it was a week after the big storms

 

I plan to advertise a lot of stuff about two months before Hershey with FREE delivery to Hershey. Brake drums, wheels, fenders, hoods, all the stuff UPS and FedEx gets $75.00 - $200.00 to deliver. Time to get even!

 

What do you need for your Lincoln?

 

This dude hasn't been back on here since he started this crap.

 

Yeah, but no matter how much flak falls about on this topic I'm still not selling him my shit for 50 cents on the dollar...

 

To paraphrase Frank Zappa, and apparently his opinion of jazz music . . .

"Swap meets aren't dead. They just smell funny."

 

This is exactly my feelings.

I have money and I am buying. But I also have a lot of ground to cover and I don't have all day to wait around for your buddy to come back and decide on what he wants for some little piece I'm mildly interested in. You're only hurting your sales by leaving stuff unmarked.

 

All I know is The Monroe Wa swap meet is this weekend, I’ll be there although I really don’t need to buy anything.

 

I'll be there too, ready and willing to sell you the thing you didn't know you needed!

 

I stopped going to the swapmeets here in the Southern California area more than 10 years ago and have been slowly selling and refining my pile of parts to only satisfy the projects that I am working on.
I’m going to the LA Roadster Show this June which is smaller than years past but is where real enthusiasts visit.
Yes, I price my parts as they are for sale.
See you there !