FAQs

The process begins with a candid “no cost, no obligation” discussion about your goals and what you are trying to accomplish. The next step is to construct a dollar & cent projection based on your historical sales and expense data. The projection details the range of results we feel the sale will achieve. All expenses associated with the sale including the cost of any fill-in inventory on consignment that is sold as well as a recommendation for our fees. The projection also includes our estimates of how much of the stores inventory will be converted into cash, how much will remain and how much “net-cash” the store-owner gets to keep after all expenses have been considered.

Traditionally the best time of the year has always been the Christmas season. That’s when the largest number of buyers are in the market place and conducting an Event allows you to take a larger share of that market place. Traditionally the next best time of the year is the spring season mid-April through June. Summer tourist & snow-bird areas run by different seasonal rules. That having been said we have conducted many successful sales at all different times of the year. We recently ran a sale in Kansas City from late July through late September. The average annual volume of the store was $488,000. The sale generated over $513,000. Sometimes the best time of the year has everything to do with the theme of your sale and the reputation of the store.

We have had some success at this. I think it’s no secret that selling a family run closely held retail jewelry store can be difficult. The buyers that say they will pay your asking price typically don’t have any financing and want you to hold the paper. Those that do have the money typically won’t pay you what it’s worth. Hence the reason a Retirement or Going out of Business sale becomes attractive because you can get dollar-for-dollar or better for your for your inventory after all expenses. We have been successful connecting several buyer and sellers together. Sometimes the buyer is someone in your staff or a family member. Many times the key is to lower the purchase price of the store by reducing your inventory through a cash raising event of some type.

The simple answer is no! This is where the projection can be very helpful in the planning of a successful sale. It has happened many times that the stores “good-will” and reputation can generate a sale the far exceeds what the stores inventory can generate in volume. The use of fill-in inventory on consignment can allow the sale to reach its full potential. A good example is a sale we recently conducted for a 45+ year old store with an annual volume of approximately $900,000 and inventory on hand at cost of approximate $450,000. The sale exceeded $2,000,000 in volume in less than 90-days. The store-owner maximized the potential of the stores good-will by selling fill-in inventory on consignment. If the store-owners business choice and plan for the sale is to include fill-in inventory on consignment CFCO can make arrangements for it and supply as much as necessary to meet the potential of the sale. Having said that it is CFCO’s policy to always give the store-owner the right and opportunity to arrange for the fill-in inventory themselves. It has happened many times where the storeowner has chosen a combination of their own vendors and vendors CFCO works with. Conversely speaking we have worked with stores that were way over-inventoried with much of it heavily aged. In situations like this it may make sense to only bring in the “bread & butter” items that sell out fast. Either way the use of fill-in inventory on consignment is always the store-owners choice and part of a store-by-store discussion.

All of this is detailed in the sale projection, and there is no charge or obligation to create the sale projection. That’s the best answer. The cost of an Event can vary from city to city based on living expenses for the on-site supervisor and the cost of the advertising media. Big cities tend to be more costly. It also has to do with the volume of the store and the nature of the sale. Higher volume sales generally pay lower commissions. Sales that require more management generally pay higher supervision costs. As a general rule of thumb you can estimate the ad campaign will cost 8% or less of the sale projection. Depending on the length of the sale and the supervision arrangement typical fees can be as little as $2,500 to as much as $9,000 per Event. The average event runs approximately eight weeks so you should calculate in that many weeks of operating expenses.