What Advice Do You Have For Someone Selling At A Local Stamp Show?

If there is a period of time for dealer only transactions and you are new, expect to be swamped by other dealers. They will be there looking for the items you mismarked too low in price.

One dealer did many shows near his retail stamp shop. He was a stamp dealer and a good stamp dealer at that. However he knew zero, zip, nada about postal history (non-FDCs). One show he decided to bring the big box of covers he had accumulated priced at $5 each. He though he did well, blowing out about half of the covers in the first hour, before the public was let in. The covers never left the room immediately but could be found at various other dealer's tables for the range of $200-$1950 each. He had no idea what he had but the postal history dealers sure did, especially with the four figure Vladivostok material.

However he still had the best show ever at the location thanks to two older Chinese ladies who cleared out much of his China and other Asian material. Alas, it was his last show at the venue due to failing heath. It had become too much to do the taxing set up and breakdown required for the show.

If you can't bring the wife, then try to bring a friendly friend to help out, for set up, tear down, security, and chit-chat when it gets slow. Agree with the other recommendation to be friendly and attentive, but not the overbearing helicopter parent. I've had dealers playing Candy Crush on their phones and seem annoyed when I walk up like I am interrupting them, and I've had dealers who want to talk non-stop while I am trying to look through their sales books and I can't focus on two things at once. Know your audience, you may need to adjust your communications style for different customers.

Also have a clear plan about discounts and try to apply it consistently. Some customers will expect a discount off the listed prices, especially if multiple items are purchased at the same time. Obviously the amount of discount depends on how well the items are priced to begin with. Hopefully they are priced fairly so that you don't have to regularly give a 30%-40% discount in order for it to be attractive to a customer. Personally I try to avoid dealers on ebay or at shows that list items at high retail prices and then offer big sales or expect you to Make Offer on everything. If you can manage a 10-20% discount for purchases over a certain amount, it is a good way to retain future customers.

More importantly (in my opinion) is to make sure you have your listed prices on everything. I have sometimes gone through dealer's stocks that just have the CV listed and I have to negotiate the price on every item. Takes a lot of time and I have passed up on items I wanted but didn't want to wait around.

Also if you do bring your ebay stock, do make sure to check your ebay sales throughout the day and pull down any items that are sold. I once tried to buy a stamp out of a dealer's sales book and he did a double-take on it, he showed me the email from ebay that morning showing someone else had already bought it, and he hadn't taken it out of the book yet. Disappointing.

Note this is all from a buyer's perspective. I've never had a table at a show myself. Can't tell you what will sell well or not, and I have frequently heard dealers say they can't predict it either. Areas that they may carry with them to 5 shows with no interest will suddenly have multiple people wanting that same area. Best to bring as much priced material as you can, in case you get that collector looking for Match & Medicine stamps or Junior Ducks, you don't want to have to say "I didn't bring that box with me."

Have fun and hope it is successful.

A $100 for a table is not bad. I think it would give you the opportunity to see if setting up ar a show would be worth it. Sometimes a show is mostly selling at other times it is a buying opportunity. I guess it depends on what is happening that day. I saw where a comment was made about so-called bottom feeders. We are not all able to buy the very best of anything. In the case of stamps the collectors wishing to fill a space is just as important to me as the one wanting to buy a C-3a. As a dealer one should have something for everyone. In the case of collectors wanting lower grade or filler items , you should treat them as well as the high end buyer. In time those so-called bottom feeders most likely will up grade and you the dealer wants to be the one that they go to. If you treat them fairly at the beginning of their collecting. They will mostly likely stay with the dealer that they have been using to build the best collection they can. I would never call someone a bottom feeder. They are as much a collector as any of us. In my opinion we need more collectors in the hobby regardless of what they collect or condition of material they buy. Just my opinion and others are welcome to disagree.

As in nature bottom feeders are a critical part of the collecting ecosystem. While 1 ten-thousand-dollar item trades hands 10,000 one-dollar items trades hands. I'll wager that a $1 box that tends itself makes more money than the material in the case.

Personally, I would consider a $100 table to be quite reasonable if not toward the low end.

I agree $100 is a fair table fee. With the cost of transportation, rooms and meals for the show. A reasonable table fee would attract more deals. You have to consider the total cost of doing a show and add nothing for your time. If I can find some reasonable priced shows in the south east United States I may very well be interested myself. If anyone knows of any shows with tables available please PM me with details and contact information.

I've had a small table at our local show in Nashville for the past 3 years, and I think that there are merits in almost every comment so far in this thread. The club sells members a table for $100, and my goal every year is to pay my table fee.

Most of the time, I'm sitting there staring off into the distance, or talking with neighbors. I'm selling mostly pre-'40 worldwide, but the U.S. dealers know me well, as I've shown most of them some items that they've had misidentified over the years, so we all spend some "show and tell" time.

Bottom line is that a club member can't really compete with some of the other world dealers that come in with 100+ red boxes. So I price everything lower than the other dealers, and try to make friends wherever I can, and the shows are just as valuable for making contacts than buying/selling that day.

Also, I've learned something every year. I want to use an idea that I learned last year, for the next show, and hope that it helps me with traffic.

So, $100 for a table is a great price and opportunity for a local show, and whether you make tons of sales or not, and if you can cover your table fee, you're also getting to talk stamps all weekend. That's a pretty great weekend in itself!

You can't talk table prices in a vacuum. Bigger high traffic shows cost more than small low traffic shows. Shows in expensive real estate areas will cost more than those in cheap real estate areas. And shows run by dealers might cost more than shows run by clubs.

Went to check out the current show today. Boy has it changed in 25 years - lol - not unexpected I guess - but it is a quarter of what it once was and almost entirely coins. It seems there are usually just one or two stamp dealers. Definitely not what I expected. Maybe the time is past for such things.