What is a typical dealers profit margin?

[macrocoin]

I am a collector that for a long time has considered the other side of the hobby.

At this point I am not prepared to leap into a business so I have been considering making offers on simple collections at estate sales. Since I am more of a collector than a reseller, it works to my advantage since I will most likely be willing to offer more for an item I wish to keep for myself than a dealer would for the same item if the intent was to resell.

 

That said, lets say I wanted to make some money off of some coins I had no interest in keeping? What is a reasonable margin? 10%? 15%? 25%?

Does it completely depend on the coin?

 

I dont want to offer so much to get the business that I am cutting myself out of any meaningful profit, but at what point is my pricing greedy?

 

In the few people I have spoken to, I can already see that most peoples expectation is that they are going to get way more for their coins than they are actually worth. Where do I place my margins so that I can set realistic expectations among folks and not push them to other dealers, and still make a profit for the effort I put into the work?

 

Thanks for any advice.

I really just dont want to rip anyone off....including myself.

[Regis44]

One general bit of advice I can offer is the price you pay drives your margin. I would guess you can expect to sell at somewhere around greysheet price (more if you're real lucky). How much you are willing to pay plus months held and finally cost to sell (seller premium or rent) will determine your profit. What is your selling market (ebay, flea market, teletrade, etc)? If you could turn everything over in one day, 10% would look pretty good. If it took 2 years then you need to get a lot more.

 

Don't count on paying higher than a dealer would if you plan on being a dealer!

 

fwiw,

Regis

[macrocoin]

One general bit of advice I can offer is the price you pay drives your margin. I would guess you can expect to sell at somewhere around greysheet price (more if you're real lucky). How much you are willing to pay plus months held and finally cost to sell (seller premium or rent) will determine your profit. What is your selling market (ebay, flea market, teletrade, etc)? If you could turn everything over in one day, 10% would look pretty good. If it took 2 years then you need to get a lot more.

 

Don't count on paying higher than a dealer would if you plan on being a dealer!

 

fwiw,

Regis

 

For simplicity, for now I would probably be selling on ebay, potentially a flea market table from time to time. I dont see myself offfering more than a dealer on purpose just to close a deal, unless the coins were for my personal collection and not for resale. The thing is, I really dont know what most dealers would put out as a bid. I have a pretty good feel for what turns around quickly on ebay, so I am fairly confident that some of the things I would be looking at would turn around quickly. I am not really looking at this as a business so much as I am a way to sustain my hobby, and learn more about the other side of it at the same time.

[James_OldeTowne]

After the expenses of show fees, hotel rooms, travel, shipping, coin holders, cost of advertising, etc, my profit margin last year was 11%.

 

James

[braddick]

After the expenses of show fees, hotel rooms, travel, shipping, coin holders, cost of advertising, etc, my profit margin last year was 11%.

 

James

And after booze, women and song the profit dips to 2%.

[James_OldeTowne]

Nobody's supposed to know about that!!

 

 

James

[MikeKing]

some dealers have gotten that from me + an arm and a leg!

 

 

 

 

 

 

only joking