Hi guys,
I will be setting up a stall at a convention to sell graded and raw cards but all my experience so far is with online sales. Was wondering if anyone has any tips on stall set up, card display, sales management, customer interaction, pitfalls, etc.
Thanks in advance. 
My best advice is get to know the person youāre dealing with. Having worked in sales for the last 8 years and been a customer many a time, I know Iām more willing to buy something when I feel like I have a personal connection with the seller. Hope that helps!
Mjisaacs
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MJ is spot on.
Some great advice here to for your specific needs:
www.shopify.com/retail/10-visual-merchandising-tips-for-increasing-event-sales
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Hereās my take after vending TCG events for a few years myself and talking with the vendors I know.
Setup: You can do this any which way serves your needs, but there are tons of ways to go about this. If you wanted to hang banners (which is always good presentation in a retail hall), youād most likely need to bring proper equipment to do so. Most venues provide tables/chairs/tablecloths so you should be set on those. Check with who youāve contracted with to see what they provide.
Card display: Most vendors use flat glass cases that lift up on one side. Everyone can see the cards inside, but only people inside the booth can open the case. Iād certainly invest in a few of these as you donāt want loose cards out in the open. The minimum I would do is binders - they are less secure but you wouldnāt put anything too expensive in there to begin with.
Sales management: Iām taking this to mean the management of your sales and inventory. Is that right? Anyway, events can get hectic. Iāve seen cards get put everywhere, especially if you are buying and selling all at once. Stay as organized as possible. Have a price sticker on everything you can. Keep cash in locked cash boxes, and card readers/devices in one place for staff to use but out of reach of spectators. Unfortunately itās almost impossible to track inventory with so many cards, but you should always have a good idea of where everything is, what could have sold if itās not there, how much everything costs, etc.
Customer Interaction: It is REALLY hard to make any type of connection with someone in the 30 seconds to 2 minutes theyāre looking at cards while trying to figure out what they want and if your prices are right for them. Youāll get much more time with someone when buying their collection, but the only way for you to use some interpersonal prowess there is to pay less for their cards, and as a business you can really only afford to pay around 60%-70% of market value in order for it to be worth your time to begin with, so there isnāt much room for haggling even lower before youāre not giving competitive vendor prices. In general, Iād say just be friendly and attentive but let people look as they please. Donāt be afraid to redirect people to other vendors if you canāt help them - referrals work both ways. Easy way to add some sales here and there is by saying during the checkout process āhey I saw you looking at X as well. Iād do Y on it for you.ā Just do your best!
Pitfalls: Vendors who are also collectors. It is extremely hard to be a collector and a vendor, unless your collecting interests are separate from what you sell. Your business has to eat the cost of buying cards for your collection, and you donāt make anything from that if you donāt flip the cards.
I hope thatās helped some! Good luck!
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Great info everyone, thanks.
@alecpokemon , the graded cards will be inside an acrylic display so buyers only have access to them when I hand them over.
For raw cards though, I was thinking of binders for anything priced between Ā£1-Ā£5 and a box filled with Ā£0.10 cards which customers can actually pick from, similar to what Japanese card shops have. This thought however, was before you used the word āhecticā.
On one hand I want to have something available to each different income group, on the other, I donāt want to find myself with 20 people around my stall at the same time, 1-5 people being the ideal for visibility. The event itself will have around 1000 people per day (not all at once).
Based on your experience, would you say Iād better stay off the lower value stuff to avoid too much confusion or, given the small number of people, would you consider it somewhat safe to have some low priced stuff?
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I would bring the cheap stuff along just in case you figure out you need it. Donāt display it at first.
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I think the binders are great! They really only allow for one person at a time to look through so thatās not hard to manage. You really may find yourself with 20 people looking at your stuff at once though. I would bring lots of lower priced things. My experience comes from State & Regional championships and a few Con events, but the grand majority of my TCG transactions were lower priced cards. Itās much more rare that someone comes through saying they want something expensive or graded.
The box of cards could be difficult to manage and with lots of hands in there, the cards could deteriorate. Another idea could be grab bags - make up some variety of cards and put them in team bags or something and sell them as cheap random lots.
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