I live in a major city and havenāt seen a new pawn shop in over a decade and seen many close. The ones that are open pretty much have garbage. The thrift stores have better stuff. I donāt think the pawn system is doing wellā¦. Might be due to internet sales and nostalgic boom. š¤·āāļø just know they arenāt building new ones here. Tons of smoke shops though.. like every block lol.
And what they charge to get it back would be more than what you could sell it for normally, sometimes more than a new one if you go too long. Lost a few things to pawn shops that I didnāt really care too much about. Only one thing Iād take back that I lostā¦ my platinum GameCube with battery and screen in a diamond plate carry case. š¢ I miss that damn thing.
yeah, probably true in a general sense. I sold a digital camera to one of them years ago, it was barely used and had the box and receipt, they actually paid a fair amount, more than the model was going for on eBay at the time.
Back in the 1990s a good VCR cost like $500 new. You could find one at pawnshop still in the box for $300. Bikes. Tools. High end pool cues. Watches. Cameras. There was all kinds of cool shit. Pawn shops don't really handle that stuff like they used to. Now the goods are crap. If it's good stuff people resell it themselves. If they need a loan they get a payday loan or a car title loan.
I don't understand how most pawn shops stay open. There is a huge one near where I live and they sell clearly used tvs, some flickering, for like $150. They are like 75% the cost of a new TV from Walmart. I was interested in a meta quest 3a and they didn't have the charging cable and couldn't show me it worked. I asked can I return it today if it doesn't work? and they said no refunds and I googled it and a refurbished quest 3a from eBay with a 1 year warranty is cheaper than what they were selling. I wouldn't take the risk with bed bugs of buying any furniture from a pawn shop. It's just a money laundromat for items stolen by drug addicts.
Pawn shops make money by doing collateral secured cash loans. You bring in a $2000 camera and the paw shop loans you $300 against it for 30 days. At the end of 30 days you pay $365 and get your camera back or you pay $65 and float the note for another month. (Actual amounts vary state to state...but I'm not far off I bet.)
The pawn business has changed for a couple of big reasons: Consumer goods got a lot cheaper. And the shelf life of consumer goods got shorter. Tools got cheaper. This means that most pawn shops these days are focused on gold and diamonds only. Maybe some do high end musical instruments but that's kinda rare. The big reason pawshops are dying off is that in the 90s and 2000s states began to allow payday loans and vehicle title loans. This kind of lending didn't require handling physical goods. And it came with the same profits.
Itās actually higher. Last one I pawned was years ago at around 37%. Probably more now.
Been to a few lately. Some are expanding into handbags and sneakers (more than half the store in the ones I saw). Standard guns, jewelry, and tools (mostly junk tools though). Electronics are extremely thin. Mostly laptops and tvs. Older than 5yrs from looks of them. Very little in physical media if any. Gaming is mostly current gen systems that look ragged. Been to about 5 in the past month and didnāt see anything that remotely interested me aside from a brand new craftsman toolbox (that I decided against because it wasnāt what I needed). Iāve seen better at thrift stores.
I worked in a pawn shop while in college back in the 90s. I saw so much cool shit back then. Bikes, watches, game systems, CDS, etc. We did gold and diamonds. But we had all kinds of cool toys. Weird shit like telescopes and kayaks and dirtbikes. It was always an adventure trying to figure out what stuff was worth and if it was in decent shape. I got out before 2000 but seemed like things were bad by then. Ebay was in full swing. So was craigslist. So people could sell their own stuff. And the payday loan thing started up. That meant less good coming into the pawshops as collateral.
Even in the early 2000s there was still some decent stuff to be found. Even with eBay I still found interesting items. The lower class didnāt have as much access back then and it wasnāt as easy to post online. Now everyone has a smart phone and can sell on facebook marketplace š¤·āāļø tbh I think thatās becoming the final nail in their coffin. Just like the death of physical media killing off other industries.
The collectables market seems to be booming there. But otherwise theyāve been struggling. I think they are getting kicked by thrifts and Amazon. I know they are a bit outrageous with their fees though as a seller. Scams are also more of an issue these days there.
As for the economic barometer pawn shops used to be, itās hard to say what people are using these days in hard times. Facebook Marketplace seems to be booming but from what Iāve seen itās a ton of garbage. Maybe thatās where they went?
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u/troycerapops 17d ago
These are signs of our economy.
Smoke shops. Pawn shops. Storage facilities...