For all of you Apartment Therapy readers living in or near warmer weather, go out bargain hunting at local yard sales and flea markets. We recently checked out the Rose Bowl flea market that sets up shop the second Sunday of every month. Bargain after bargain was waiting to be found at this very popular and quite large gathering of goods + furniture + antiques + modern pieces. Check out our amazing bargain and tips we used after the jump.
Bargain Hunting & Deal Making
Tips For Researching & Getting A Great Deal
{Happily finding a media credenza at the Rose Bowl Flea Market last weekend.}
{...and now living in our apartment, providing extra storage too!}
We wanted a vintage sideboard and needed to be resourceful. We spotted this simple + pretty piece and followed a few tips and got a great price and a great piece.
Tips on researching and finding the bargain...
- Make a list of what you are looking for and prioritize it. The sheer volume of stuff for sale can be overwhelming, so you will need to stay focused.
- Become an expert on what you want to buy. Who are the reputable manufacturers? Make sure you can tell the difference between the genuine article and a knockoff.
- Do your research before the event. Know what similar items are going for on eBay or Craigslist.
- Decide whether you are buying for your personal enjoyment or for resale. If the idea is just to enjoy it, it might be worth a little more to you than an item you see solely as a business transaction.
- If you are looking at an item to put into use in your home - a record player or microwave, for example - make sure it works before you lay down the cash.
- If you don't see what you want, ask a vendor. Vendors can tell you about items you might not have seen, and they often know what their neighbor vendors are selling.
- The final day of the yard sale or the end of a flea market is the time for the best bargains. You can get a lot for half off or more because vendors don't want to load up the trucks for the round trip. To that end, the bigger the item, the better chance you have for negotiating a good price on the sale's last day. Because big items take the most effort and storage space to pack up, vendors are motivated to unload them.
Tips on getting the deal...
- Let the vendor name the first price, and then start haggling from there.
- Respect the vendor's effort. The item may be the vendor's personal favorite, or it may have been very difficult to transport to the yard sale.
- Don't start too low. Asking for 50 percent off can backfire by insulting the vendor. To be safe, try starting at 70 percent.
- The more you buy, the more you save. Vendors are more likely to give steep discounts on volume purchases than on single items.
- No matter what, be polite.
Check out more deal hunting from Apartment Therapy here:
- Favorite LA Area Flea Markets?
- Ready for the weekend? Ready for the Rose Bowl?
- Tips for Getting a Good Deal on Furniture
Comments (6)
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Nice score. Looks even better in your place. Congrats!
view Seaside's profile
As someone who sells large volumes of second hand furniture, can I add:
Never tell a vendor how much you'll give them [below the ticket price], always ask. eg.
Buyer 'I'll give you 10 bucks for that'
Vendor 'sod off'
instead try:
Buyer 'Would you take $10 for that?'
Vendor 'sure, because your polite - not like that other tit'
and always have correct change if you've just haggled a discount [or at least less than the original price].
view pinky speedway's profile
What a great find - and good tips Pinky!
(You're right - it seems awkward to bargain someone down to $15 on something they wanted to charge $20, then hand them a $20 bill asking for change...)
view bepsf's profile
I love markets like that. And I think it's also the butterfly effect -- if the person in front of you bargains down to $15 from $20 then hands them a $20 and and asks for change, it's possibly going to affect how much of a bargaining mood the vendor will be in when I show up. My being polite passes to the next customer's experience, you being polite passes to me.
view AZkathy's profile
Agreed on all the tips, but the Rose Bowl Flea Market is not as good as it used to be a few years ago. You used to be able to walk away with pretty decent steals, but now everyone there selling things knows exactly how much what they have is worth and usually won't budge on price. The last few times I've gone the majority of the vintage pieces were insanely overpriced and a lot of the vendors had extremely poor attitudes. No doubt it partially was the fact that it was during summer and they had been baking in 100 degree weather all day, but I had a number of vendors complain about the fact that the Rose Bowl had raised the price of their space rental and that was now trickling down to the customer in the form of non negotiable prices.
view cooper_black's profile
And if it's hard to transport to the place, it's worse to pack up to bring it back. Stay til the end, and watch the prices drop.
view Palmetto's profile