Used Items Becoming A Big Draw For Shoppers

It's a good time to be a used car salesman.

In fact, if you're in the business of selling anything pre-owned, you're likely to get more attention than normal these days.

Used cars, used furniture, used video games or used sporting equipment. If there are markdowns, you have a leg up on most retailers at a time when most of them are scrambling to adjust to a slumping market.

"Those used-only and used-new retailers are really doing well now," said Pat Quinn, who is the director of Play It Again Sports, a sports equipment chain that sells used and new sporting goods. "A lot of these businesses have been born out of the Play It Again Sports model. I would expect that to continue."

Quinn's company began in 1983 in Minneapolis and franchised five years later. It has three locations in the Tampa area.

Its umbrella corporation - Winmark - also runs Once Upon a Child, Plato's Closet and Music Around, all of which are chains that sell used and discounted items.

Video game retailer GameStop has several locations in West Central Florida. The company reported a 22 percent jump in overall sales during the Christmas season, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Local pawn shops also are taking advantage of the recent trend in favor of used items.

"We're selling a substantial amount of product and it's amazing because so many people are doing so poorly," said Norman Aldrich, owner of Easymoney Pawn in Spring Hill. "With good prices, people are still buying."

Perhaps no one has benefited more from sales of used items than local auto dealerships. Register Chevrolet sold 142 units in December 2008, an increase of 30 percent compared to the same month one year earlier.

Most of those sales - more than 70 percent - were from used vehicles, said sales manager Greg Kowzan.

"A lot of it was from rental car companies," he said. "They were dumping their inventories and offering deals you couldn't pass up."

The cars bought by the dealerships were, in turn, sold to customers for up to 50 percent off compared to what it was brand new. The vehicles had an average of 13,000 miles. The warranties also were extended.

"People are seeing the value in pre-owned vehicles," Kowzan said. "We took advantage of the market and the customers took advantage, so we all won."

As of Thursday, Register had sold 79 vehicles in January. More than 60 of them were used, he said.