Odd... - Oddities (2010) Discussion

[–] LeTensai 13 years ago

They seems to make quite a lot of profit by items, like that monkey head they bought for 125$ and sold 350$

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Kinda makes you wonder if any of the buyers watched the show later and got pissed at how much cash they were charged for some of the items.

-Jon

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[–] vintageraven 13 years ago

People don't seem to have any idea how much money it takes, to keep a store running. You have to pay rent, taxes, employee wages, electricity, expenses when travelling around finding new items, etc. etc. After all those expenses, the owners have to make enough money to pay their own wages.
Additionally, when they buy new items for the store, it can takes months before the items are sold and they get their money back with some profit to cover their expenses.

The usual markup for a normal store is 250-300% and sometimes more. This store barely hits the 200% markup price on most items, and often less.

If you took the time to actually do the math on this, you would realise that they are actually being extremely fair in pricing their items.

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[–] Grimm-Grimm 13 years ago

Hmmm are you one of the people on the show? Jusrt curious because sometimes when people only have 1 post or 2 on a show forum and mention some inside knowledge, they are sometimes associated with the show. I wish more people posted from shows on here. I don't think anyone really thinks that the prices are unfair. It's very difficult to make an independent business work well in America now. :)

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[–] vintageraven 13 years ago

I am not from the show, although it would be awesome to visit the shop. I've never even been to the US.

I'm a trained goldsmith and make handmade jewellery that people often think is 'overpriced' just because it costs more than a $5 mass produced item.
As you yourself mention, people don't understand how difficult it is to make money as a small business. A lot of people just assume that if something costs more than a few bucks, the seller is eating caviar and drinking champagne every day.

I don't have any agenda in defending the show. I was just trying to shed some light on the actual cost of having a business.

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[–] dell_4b 13 years ago

No effing way is normal store markup that much. 33% tops for most places that sell music items. Maybe clothing is sustantially more but I know music and it's generally 33%

Hell I have a business and I don't even charge a premium on supplies I need to buy for customers so my time and gas expense to go to the store to buy these items are on my dime. Hell, I'll even go as far to run some of their errands just to "be nice" and again, on my dime...

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[–] vintageraven 13 years ago

What I meant with for instance 250% markup is that they times the original price with 2,5, so if they buy an item for 100 bucks they should sell if for around 250 to make a profit. Maybe it wasn't clear from my first posting, sorry about that :)

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[–] dell_4b 13 years ago

Right and I am saying it is standard for music stores to have a 40% markup (or less) so if it cost me $100 as a dealer to buy an item I sell it for $140. Boom that's a fair profit and for me to charge $250 would seem like freaking extortion.

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[–] dave-935-71127 12 years ago

Standard retail markup is 200%, or double.

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[–] jonathanmarklund 13 years ago

Because people buy weird stuff.

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[–] Grimm-Grimm 13 years ago

They had a monkey head?? Wowa. Well I'm not surprised they make money because as the money making entrepreneurial saying goes, "find a niche and fill it" if you want to make money. In other words, they pretty much have the market cornered on that weird stuff and they are in New York. A city full of everything and anything. I won't be surprised though if after this show some Hot Topic version of weird stuff stores start popping up and becoming trendy. Piercings and tattoos aren't very original or shocking anymore so now we will see highschool kids buying decapitated monkey heads.

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[–] carlphillips408 13 years ago

i love shows like this.pawn stars leaps to mind.i stumbled upon this show quit by accident & although have only watched about 10 minutes into it have come to a startling conclusion.the show is a fake.
some guy comes in with something (he is not showing us the item) but seems to enjoy giving a long winded description of the item & making claw like representations with his hands.is this guy just a bad actor?did he come off the stage or is this just a few minutes rehearsal?then he brings out what he claims to be a vampire bat.
then the next guy walks in...after a long winded introduction (again) he decides to inform us what he is doing there.he looking for Victorian,mechanical items that he can alter so they can be used with today's technology.okay then,onwards & forwards.
the next guy tries to get into the shop with a large cardboard box with some animal skull in it...i do not bother with the rest of the show.
do not get me wrong.the people on the show,although appear very "eccentric" i am sure are good people,but the "shop" can only serve as a museum/tourist attraction.

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[–] emo_ville2002 13 years ago

Most reality shows have an element of 'fakery', this shop is real, of course there's some sort of set up on the days of filming, otherwise they wouldn't be able to film with just anyone walking in.

It's been many years since the original reality show, "An American Family", hit TV screens! Reality shows have changed in the extreme, they've become more slick, clearly fake and scripted. Though, this show seems more real than fake. It's NY, after all, there's a lot of weird people who collect extremely odd stuff in NY!

As for the other posts, re a lot people not realizing what it takes to own and operate a shop. Yes, there is the store's rent, taxes, wages and unemployment taken out for workers (unless the guy who works for the couple in this show is a freelancer, though he seems to be a business partner not a worker), electricity/heat etc, insurance if someone falls in your store etc and traveling expenses to find new and exciting items to keep the customers coming!

The markups aren't too high at all, especially considering all the money it takes to run a shop, especially in NY.

Just compare owning a shop, where you have more overhead to run it, with eBay Sellers who buy 'lots' in estate sales, then they sell the individual items for much more than the entire lot cost them, eBay Sellers probably do much better than people who have actual stores.

eBay Sellers have no massive overhead except the cost of having the Internet, their eBay fees, local traveling to buy items and in cases where they don't live near a Post Office, the gas costs for the drive to get to one. Some Sellers even try to pass their gas costs off to Buyers by inflating their postage charges! It's still much less money for eBay Sellers to sell in this online manner than owning an actual shop!

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[–] CassieJo 12 years ago

Define fake.

Is there a person or team to screen people to see who to put on the show? Probably.
Is there editing going on behind the scenes? Of course.
Are some of the interactions made up or played up for television? Almost definitely.
Is it a real shop, do those people really work there, and are they much like you see on the show? I'm pleased to say they are.

I visited the shop on a trip to NYC on what turned out to be a filming day; nerves seemed rather high, and still both Mike and Evan were truly kind and willing to chat. They do have a very honest love for what they do. It was also interesting to hear the producer talk to them and get a tiny look at what goes into the show. The majority of what you see is real, and the little that's not is understandable. If you don't believe me, drop in yourself one day. You won't regret it.

(On the topic of pricing, they're equal to or better than the antique stores in my area when comparing similar items. This could be a good reflection on Obscura or a poor reflection on my local antique stores; take your pick.)

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[–] dell_4b 13 years ago

Seems like they double the price for items they buy, which is highway robbery, even for rent in NY. Oddly enough they rip off guys that are friends of theirs and once they see the show they would probably not want to deal with them again. I thought Pawn Stars were scammers low balling the people and then turning around for profit. The couple from Obscura are scammers. Hell they want to lowball people out of items for their collection the people prob don't even want to part with, and then as an aside one of them will tell the audience how high the price is that they are asking but then if they buy it they double the pridce right off when they are selling it in their Obscura shop and when/ if the customer negotiates, they don't even haggle to the degree they just haggled the people they bought the item from. That's a scammer.

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[–] scarletminded 13 years ago

There are items that have gone for $10,000. Like that hybrid animal that was made for a local store window. Not everything is $100-200. They have items of all prices in the store, just like any store out there.

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[–] rosemei 9 years ago

I remember one couple who asked Mike to find something rare, possibly extinct. He found them a saber-tooth cat skull after visiting at least two collectors, and then delivered it to them in Woodstock. How much mileage and gas and time was that? He paid $5000 and charged them $7000. Didn't seem too unreasonable to me.

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