By Bronwyn Gerretsen
Laptop computers, hi-fis, TVs, sporting equipment and other such luxury goods are among the primary items cash-strapped people are selling and pawning in these difficult financial times.
Many pawn shops are seeing an increase in the number of people trying to make some quick cash by parting with their no-longer-needed or non-essential possessions, with some even having to turn customers away because of an overflow of particular items.
But just as talks of the worldwide recession easing seem to differ from person to person, so business for such shops seems to ebb and flow from one to another.
| 'People aren't buying luxury goods any more, so we can't sell them either' |
Michelle Lutchmina, of Longbury Pawn Brokers in Phoenix, said yellow-gold jewellery, DVD players, TVs, car sound systems and fishing rods were the most common items people were getting rid of for cash, with most opting to pawn instead of selling them. And most of them did pay to get their items back.
But for a pawn shop in the upper Highway area, the situation was slightly different, with the buy-back rate of pawned items dropping from 65 percent to about only 20 percent.
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"Even my regulars who come in every month to pawn the same items and then buy them back aren't able to do so. It's definitely a sign of the economy. I have never seen it like this in the past 10 or 11 years," said the owner.
Guitar amps, electric guitars, speakers and fancy sound systems were the most popular items people were selling.
"We throw our hands up at them now. People aren't buying luxury goods any more, so we can't sell them either. If people are desperate enough and sell them for a ridiculous price then we may consider buying them, but even so, I have a small shop and it takes up space."
Liesl Ubsdell, of Gold and Finance in Musgrave, which deals in jewellery, said the shop had been very busy in recent months, but had quietened down.
The business operates by buying or lending money against jewellery, including fine watches. For gold and diamond jewellery, it pays per carat or gold weight.
"But people often phone to ask us whether we deal in cellphones, sunglasses and laptops."
Ubsdell said customers were both buying and pawning, but that although those who pawned their items did pay the interest on the loan, most of the time they couldn't afford to buy them back.
But Richard Mukheiber, managing director of Cash Converters Southern Africa, said while people did sell more products in economic downturns, the company also, strangely, sold more. This is because they were able to sell relatively new items for much cheaper than if they were purchased new in shops, he said.
Cash Converters also rolled out a new product last month which is a cash-advance on a person's next salary cheque. Mukheiber said the market demanded such a product.
He said items such as hi-fis, TVs, iPods, sports goods, cameras and cellphones were the items people pawned and sold most.
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