What Are Your Feelings On "Trunk Dealers" at Pool Events?

been on both sides

I have been on both sides of this question.

I have been to SBE, DCC, USopen, Joss events, etc with cues for sale. I had my own set of rules for this type of transaction.
I never showed a cue to anyone in the a booth without clearing it with the booth owner first. If a customer was looking at cues in a booth I would not mention what I had for sale. Again unless I knew the vendor and had cleared it with them already.
I would wait until the customer left the booth and then approach them and ask if they wanted to see what I had available.
I know for a lot of people still think even this scenario is wrong but I felt once they left the booth and didn't buy they are now everyone's customer. When they are in someone's booth they are only their customer.
I have also steered people to many booths when I know they are in the market for a certain cue and a vendor has something they may like.

The past few years I have worked in a booth at the Expo and have had people right in the booth say things like( you like THAT cue check this one out). Then they proceed to take a cue from their case and start showing to the customer. This is just dead wrong no question about it. I asked the person to put the cue away unless they wanted to trade it in on something in the booth. I think people just don't think at times. Maybe they are just that desperate for money that they don't care.

I wish the market was well enough that all the vendors could make money including the "trunk dealers" it would mean great things for the industry.
 
" Trunk Dealers" at Pool Events

this has been a interesting post. i agree w/ Kicken Chicken, obey the rules that are set in place & have respect for the vendors. i don't mind someone bringing in a 12 pack to try to sell or trade w/ me, but show them to others in front of your booth & sometimes give your potensial customer a better price than they give you. they think this is OK. when trading w/ vendor you should always offer them the lowest price, not the public. lets say a guy wants a $2,500 trade value on his cue, & you can't give him that but a little less, so another potensial customer asked how much? he says i'll take $2,000 for it. that irritates me to the core. also someone consigns a cue w/ you @ $2,500, you pack it up & guard it for several days. he shows up & takes his cue back & sells it for $2,000, but wanted $2,500 to you. believe me these things happen. don "the SUREMANATER" aka Sure Man Cues
 
sureman183 said:
this has been a interesting post. i agree w/ Kicken Chicken, obey the rules that are set in place & have respect for the vendors. i don't mind someone bringing in a 12 pack to try to sell or trade w/ me, but show them to others in front of your booth & sometimes give your potensial customer a better price than they give you. they think this is OK. when trading w/ vendor you should always offer them the lowest price, not the public. lets say a guy wants a $2,500 trade value on his cue, & you can't give him that but a little less, so another potensial customer asked how much? he says i'll take $2,000 for it. that irritates me to the core. also someone consigns a cue w/ you @ $2,500, you pack it up & guard it for several days. he shows up & takes his cue back & sells it for $2,000, but wanted $2,500 to you. believe me these things happen. don "the SUREMANATER" aka Sure Man Cues
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I think that the consignment FEE should be 10% of the owner's asking price - paid UP FRONT and non-refundable.

AND the dealer should get every penny above the asking price in addition that he can get.
 
From the perspective of a vendor, who spends thousands each year to display at the SBE, I am totally against anyone who would attempt to negotiate a sale to a private customer within the Expo. This literally takes money directly from vendors. If someone is going to spend their money at the expo (and many folks come with that specific intention) then it ends up costing a vendor a sale. If it ends up costing too many vendors, then they will disappear eventually. I say that with the caveat that some vendors will trade cues, but that is different than one individual privately selling to another.

If you are a trunk dealer, then there is a way to still sell. Set up appointments with potential customers somewhere OTHER than the event venue. Meet at the hotel, at the restaurant down the road, or any other place that is NOT the actual event. It is still not ideal, but its better than selling wares at the venue itself

It may be an unpopular opinion, but that's how I feel. Having worked in other industries, it is amazing to see those that love the sport "eat their own" by continuing to perpetuate behavior that potentially damages those that can add support to the game, like many of the vendors who pay a premium to help make the expo part of what it is.
 
I have to slightly disagree Matt. I kind of feel that the money circulates regardless. Those who go to the show with a case full of cues probably have a tendency to want to fill any empty slots before they leave the show. I mean I can say that I have had folks go and sell their case so that they could come back and buy a case from me.

I see a sale like that as making three people happy, me, the guy who was able to sell his used case to buy mine and the guy who bought the used case.

Maybe what the shows should do is charge a fee for cases larger than 4x8. So if you want to wheel in a dealer case then you have to pay 3-4 hundred or at least a couple hundred. And perhaps set up a designated "trading" area where those dealers can hang out and deal with customers.

I know how it feels though to have someone running around mucking up sales. One year I had a guy running around selling Instroke cases for far below the established price list. I didn't realize until near the end of the show that he had done it or I would have asked for him to be kicked out.

I got my revenge though, later at the BCA I had a guy go over and buy out their booth at wholesale prices and moved all their inventory to my booth and made a great profit on it. :-)
 
carter1984 said:
From the perspective of a vendor, who spends thousands each year to display at the SBE, I am totally against anyone who would attempt to negotiate a sale to a private customer within the Expo. This literally takes money directly from vendors. If someone is going to spend their money at the expo (and many folks come with that specific intention) then it ends up costing a vendor a sale. If it ends up costing too many vendors, then they will disappear eventually. I say that with the caveat that some vendors will trade cues, but that is different than one individual privately selling to another.

If you are a trunk dealer, then there is a way to still sell. Set up appointments with potential customers somewhere OTHER than the event venue. Meet at the hotel, at the restaurant down the road, or any other place that is NOT the actual event. It is still not ideal, but its better than selling wares at the venue itself

It may be an unpopular opinion, but that's how I feel. Having worked in other industries, it is amazing to see those that love the sport "eat their own" by continuing to perpetuate behavior that potentially damages those that can add support to the game, like many of the vendors who pay a premium to help make the expo part of what it is.
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Nice post....I totally agree.

This above in blue is already happening....these events are losing vendors. So people, if you wish to continue seeing vendors at these events, you need to support them or steer your friends into supporting them.
 
Here is my question. Are any of you willing to report the guy who show up with dealer cases? I mean I understand the problem but what's the solution? Because the problem isn't going to go away just because we talk about it.

I don't care what type of show you have there will always be people who are skirting the system. This applies to manufacturers who try to peddle their wares to vendors as well. I mean let's say for example that a competitor of mine ships a few "trunkers" to the show to walk around and try to solicit wholesale orders rather than paying for a both to present his wares? Should that brand be barred from the show altogether for a couple years?

What should the penalty be and are you willing to bring down that hammer on the people you know are peddling without a booth?

Will the hammer even be brought down?
 
I can appreciate that trading and selling are part of the territory with the cue business. Some vendors have customers they see at events every year that they trade with.

I still think that any sort of private "person to person" selling is totally shortchanging the folks that spend money to buy a booth. Even if the sale comes from someone who came to the show, sold their own cue, and then turned around and bought a cue from a vendor.

By comparison, I've been to numerous guitar shows, and not once have I witness the type of behavior that I have seen at pool tournaments. By that I mean people that have shown up with personal gear with the express purpose of finding private buyers at the show.

From all I have seen, Allen has been pretty good about policing, but then again, I am often tied directly to the booth and don't see all of the what is taking place around the venue.

I still stand by my opinion though, that private selling should not be tolerated at events where vendors have paid money to set up and try to sell.
 
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
 
Lucky_Lew66 said:
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
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That called business.. Every business try's to get something as cheap as possible and maximize profit. If you don't do that..you won't be in business long. That has been going on long before pawn stars lol A flipper needs to make a profit from his investment. No different then a pawn shop. If you want to maximize value for whatever it is you selling you need to find the person that covets that Item. Not the middle man who has to sit with it in his inventory until he finds the person that covets it. People that sell there cues to flippers get what they deserve. They're to lazy to do the work to sell it so they deserve to get 50 cents on the dollar for what they have.
 
Lucky_Lew66 said:
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
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Not fair at all. This year I will be at minus 17,000 dollars before the show starts when my show costs are added up.

If someone brings me a case they want to trade in then I have to consider the price I could get for it and then make an offer below that to have some profit. Otherwise I am doing twice the work to effectively make one sale.

Let's say I have a case that is 500 and I it costs me $300 to get it to the show. Now if someone brings me their $500 used case and expects me to give the $350 for it on trade then I get $150 and a used case. I can't sell the used case for $350 but let's say I can...then the best I can do is get the 500 I originally want for my new case after spending the time on two transactions to get it

So if one translates that time into wages and says that the 30 minutes per transaction is worth $20 each the I have spent $40 out of my $200 gross profit. I have effectively lost 100% of the time I could have been using to sell another $500 case. Had I done that I would have $1000 in sales for the same hour of effort and $400 gross profit and $360 net profit instead of $500 in sales and $160 net profit.

What you call stealing is called staying in business when one looks at the larger picture.
 
Lucky_Lew66 said:
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
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This response is so stupid it almost doesn't warrant any response....other than to point that out. :thumbup:
 
Seems to me Lucky has yet to spend one day in a retail environment. Better yet, one day as the owner of a retail business. Reminds me of my one and only trip to Times Square in the late '60's. There was a store with a large sign on the front window. "We lose money on every sale but make it up on volume". Yaaa suuuure. Whether you're a car, appliance, hookah or cue dealer, making a profit on the vast majority of sales is mandatory. That is if you want to remain in business :confused: .

Lyn
 
Lucky_Lew66 said:
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
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A little economic education might benefit you:

Hazlitt.


It's free and can be read in an hour or so.

Jeff Livingston
 
Really... how bout the guys who want 3k in trade on a cue they couldn't get 2000 for here or on ebay? Dealers are not here to correct the mistakes that other people make on their cue purchases. Production cues are offered at 50% or better on the wholesale level. Your 1500 dollar schon might get you 12 wings and a coke at Buffalo Wild Wings.

People who complain about trade in prices, well go sell the cue on your own and come hard with the Benji's... The fact is 99% of the trade offers are on cues that would sell quicker if I was on the corner in Alaska selling them for fire wood.

Do you know why this is? Because the thoroughbreds run well, the nags get put to pasture.

Can you diiiiiiiigggggggggg it.... :thumbup:

JV

Lucky_Lew66 said:
i think the vedors bring it on themselves ,they want to steal your stuff for nothing and turn around and sell it for double,so i say more power to the trunk dealers,and how does it feel to be undercut to the dealers,serves them right i think,maybe they will be more fair on their prices for trades,they have been watching pawn stars a little too much i think.
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For some of our bigger local tourneys Pat Diveney will show up and set up a booth....and there will always be a couple of guys with a rolling 12 cue case trying to sell as well. Pat gets my business every time. If the venue doesn't mind, then it's up to the individual (buyer) to choose who they want to deal with. I figure Pat does it to put food on the table, and risked the expenses to be there....the choice is easy for me.
 
So glad they don't make 12 cases cases for trunking case dealers :-)

Wouldn't it be funny if a trunker rolled in with a literal trunk, like those ones from 1910?

childJLrounded2.jpg
 
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trustyrusty said:
For some of our bigger local tourneys Pat Diveney will show up and set up a booth....and there will always be a couple of guys with a rolling 12 cue case trying to sell as well. Pat gets my business every time. If the venue doesn't mind, then it's up to the individual (buyer) to choose who they want to deal with. I figure Pat does it to put food on the table, and risked the expenses to be there....the choice is easy for me.
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There should be more event patrons like you !! :thumbup:
 
Nice post

I find it funny that vendors never pay retail but charge it. Never give top dollar but get it. Never swap even up if you suggest it but will make the same suggestion on a different item. You see it is O.K. for them to do that.
They have more on the table. No more ons for me.
That being said trunk vendors are leaches.
Nick :)
 
Some members posted both the Pros and Cons of the situation.

Myself, it would be like opening a restaurant and having someone stroll up and down the side walk in front with a sandwich board advertising another restaurant down the block.

There is a reason why vendors pay big bucks for booths, travel expense etc to come to a large tourney and show.

If in the future, promoters find that the vendors are getting scarce, you could probably add Trunk Dealers to the list of reasons for not attending.

If you are responsible for putting on a large tourney, one of your responsibilities is also making sure that the vendors are happy.

A large selection of vendors also make the players happy.

So, would you personally go out of your way to sabotage your own promotion.

Trunk Dealers should get shown one thing. The Door.
 
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