What's in the vac Shops

[williamr1248]

My friend Tania came to visit last week and we spend 5 days checking out vac shops. We saw some very interesting patterns in shop after shop after shop.


(1) in more than one shop we saw "back rooms full " of traded in Dysons


(2) many,many almost new Kirby Systems traded in 


(3) almost no used machines


(4) NEW Miele line of canisters


What we were told by several shop owners was many people become disenchanted with the Dyson's bulk and having to empty the bin and people don't like the weight of the Kirby and difficulty of changing to suction tools. It is always hard for me to understand because I like both the Dyson's attachments and I never thought the Kirby was difficult to change to attachment use.


Also liked the looks of the new Miele line . It is quiet BUT it looks like a toy vac as it is so small. The bag is very  small too. It came in pretty colors! They are offering more straight suction machines with this line. 


It was a fun week.

 

[goadie12]

Sounds like a great time I understand the dysons being traded in but I don't get what's with the Kirby's you think if some one was going to spend that amount of money on a vacuum they would use if for at least ten years thanks. Zach

 

[lunchboxsean]

I have a friend that worked for a major bank from 08-09 cleaning out houses that had been foreclosed on. He said that he was always finding stuff that people left behind when they were evicted including flat screen tv mounts left on the wall, stock car rims where the person had obviously bought custom rims and left the old ones behind, and yep, that's right, high end vacuums were very common too. He said probably half the houses he cleaned out had a rainbow, kirby, filter queen, tri-star, or aerus lux in them. Maybe that's where the trade ins are coming from.

 

[scvacuumguy]

almost no used machines....

We cut out selling used machines earlier this year. Just no room in our store for used machines to junk it up unless they are vintages on display.

As for Dysons, we get so many in on trade that we normally trash them if they require any sort of service or part (we do keep two on the floor in strategic locations to make people ask questions and start a demo).

Kirbys- we end up selling a lot of folks with Kirbys and they consign them with us. Craigslist or a bojack dealer works best to unload those monstrosities.

 

[bagintheback]

No Used Machines

I too would like to know why no one sells used vacuums anymore. My local vac store, "Sun Vally Sew n Vac" used to have part of their sales floor filled with used vacuums, along with their large section of Riccars and Royals. One time I went in and they had an 80s F&G Eureka for sale, and I begged my mom to buy it. I did not get my wish, and that was the last time I saw a used vacuum for sale there.

The last store I saw selling used vacuums was in Tempe, but the recession forced it to close. Are there too little profitable vacuums to sell? I'd rather buy a used Electolux or Hoover than a new machine, and I am sure many non-collectors would agree with me, especially since not many people want to spend much money on vacuums these days.

 

[scvacuumguy]

I'm not going to junk up my floor with $30-75 used vacuums. A lot of the nicer vacuum stores do not want to sell other peoples' filth. 95% of customers do not want to buy someone's old vacuum cleaner when they come into a specialty store. I'm not sure why you think most people would want to buy a used vacuum in this economy, when the people without money are mainly shopping at Wal Mart and buying the $40 Bissell special.

Although most, if not all, of a used vacuum is profit, I would much rather make a nice margin selling a new machine than wasting valuable real estate on my sales floor with some old vacuum. It really does make a store look like a "used" appliance store when they have a section of used vacuums. We just phased ours out about 4 months ago and have had no complaints.

 

[bagintheback]

Used Vacs

Maybe used is not the correct word. I would like it if vacuum stores sold refurbished vacuums that they cleaned themselves. When I did see used vacuums for sale, they were all in almost like-new condition with new bags and belts, thus they were refurbished by the store. I think if refurbished high-end brands were sold, not Wal-Mart junk, customers would think even better of your store. You are saving them money, and they will be using a quality vacuum.

 

[scvacuumguy]

My biggest issue with "refurbished" high-end vacuums is we already carry new high end vacuums. It is a bad use of resources to spend time selling a used Kirby or Electrolux for $500-800 when I can sell them a new Riccar Immaculate or Radiance for upwards of $1300 and make more money selling the new vacuum while promoting the brand.

Normally anything high-end refurb we sell on CL or to a die-hard customer specifically looking for a certain model. There are strategically placed vacuums in the windows. The Kirby, E-2 Rainbow and Dyson are all there for the simple reason that people walking or driving by will pique interest in the store and know that we carry and repair those machines. I actually prefer NOT to sell my window vacuums because they are mainly there to attract customers.

In terms of Wal-Mart and other BBS vacuums, I'm going to try to liquidate them by sending an employee to the flea market with them in hopes that they it will actually make money and not lose money. If they lose money, then they will continue being dumped off bi-weekly when we clean out the trade-in closet.

The ONLY way we actually will sell a refurbished high-end (yes we keep some in the back of the store) is if a customer brings in a dead HE vacuum and insists that they replace it with a newer version of the same thing. That results in about a 10 minute sale at maximum profit.

I would never, ever demo a used vacuum against a new vacuum and call it a better value than our high-end new vacuums, that's called shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[gsheen]

In Sa you get only a few high end brands , dyson miele sebo vorwerk kirby and Rainbow


 


We sell the dyson Miele sebo & vorwerk vacuums interestingly we can't get enough refurbished vacuums particularly dysons. we strip them wash them rebuff them and resell them for half the price of a new one with a 2 year guarantee. these machines are pretty expensive here and do not sell aswell as in other country's due to there price.


 


I have only seen a few riccars and recently did a Voltage conversion on one ( you do not get them here) but they wouldn't sell in SA as they use bags and look a little old fashioned like our vacuums did in the 80's and 90's. They are very nice and I was impressed with them but  every thing here has to be the latest and greatest It must look modern or it will not sell , S is very image conscious thats why Audi's and BMW outsell Toyota's here

 

[vac_whisperer]

"Monstrosities"

HOW DARE YOU! lol


 


 

 

[thissucks]

monstrosities?

cant expect dumb people to use heavy machinery like a kirby.
i like that it weighs a ton and is clunky- function over form, they truly deep clean the best- period, end of story.
we almost never get any kirbys in, lots more dysons, but almost all traded in ones are scrapped- they are pure junk after a few years and not worth putting the money into them to sell them.

lots of hoovers, over here the only machines we get traded in are dead cheapie machines that we just scrap.

 

[thissucks]

monstrosities?

cant expect dumb people to be able to use heavy machinery like a kirby.
i like that it weighs a ton and is clunky- function over form, they truly deep clean the best- period, end of story.
we almost never get any kirbys in, lots more dysons, but almost all traded in ones are scrapped- they are pure junk after a few years and not worth putting the money into them to sell them.

lots of hoovers, over here the only machines we get traded in are dead cheapie machines that we just scrap.

 

[gsheen]

hardly ever get Kirbys in for repair??


 


Do they not sell well in your area ? we mus do about 10 -15 Kirbys a week , mostly sentria s. every thing from the standard busted fan to burnt out armitures & failed powerdrives. Every shop I know both here in SA and in the states has loads of kirby's in for repair , hang I drove out into the farm lands to see a friend who has a general appliance repair store out there the other day , 1 old hoover 3 electroluxes 4 Samsung's and 14 Kirby's( g3,g5,g6 rest sentria's )  in for repair . face it they don't make them like they used to. they used to be good quality well made , I had 2 sentria's last week in with cracks is the brush head aluminium , only when I had a real close look did I see why its paper thin.


 


they do clean well but for what you pay there is better out there. 


 


When I stopped of at our local Kirby dealership, the owner a nice guy shook his head when I commented on all the sentria's he had in for repair, he told me that most customers ask for there old (traded inn) Kirby's back as the new ones don't last. Thats from the Kirby guy himself !


 


Don't get me wrong I love Kirby's , they look wonderful all polished up and on display and that's were they'll stay

 

[tolivac]

Most of the Kirby repairs in my area are for broken fans(esp the plastic fans)bad cords,and issues like clogged bag fill tubes or Tech Drive problems.

 

[williamr1248]

What's in the Vac Shops

What you are saying about the Kirby's make perfect sense to me. I could be a regional thing or maybe the Kirby is one of the few vacuums a customer would feel has enough value to even try and repair. It does seem like to me that the norm around here is to toss out what ever plastic vacuuum they have and buy new.


I was just shocked to see so many new Dysons that were traded in . It seems like I would not want to invest in another new machines if I still had a working machine and had paid that much for a new machine. People do strange things with their money.


 

 

[tolivac]

It would seem that ANY high end vacuum such as Kirby,Filter Queen,Rainbow,Compact-Tristar would be worthy of repair and resell.This may apply to Meile as well.I too,have seen Dysons and other bagless vacuums get traded in toward bagged vacuums--because the user decided that bagless wasn't for them.

 

[kenkart]

Kirbys!

There are LOTS of them here, and TONS of them at the Goodwill outlet for 5.00 a piece, I saw just lat week, a Heritage, two G3s and a G5,I never buy them because I cant sell them, I dont like Orecks, but I buy everyone I find that is decent, 5 bucks a piece and I can sell them all day for 50.

 

[gsheen]

Another machine we are starting to see alot of in the repair side is sebo, considering they are not big sellers in SA its a bit surprising to see 5 or six a week. mostly blown circuit boards on the x4 and yesterday our first Felix with a snapped joint. cleaning lady apparently fell on it. ( you will believe it when you see the cleaning lady ) nice machine otherwise.


 


According to our Kirby guy the sentria has outsold every other Kirby by a hefty margin so that could be why we see so many in our shop , There are just allot more out there.Still not my favorite kirby though. 

 

[lunchboxsean]

In much of America, Dysons are the number one vacuum brand to be in for service at the vac shop. I think this is because of the trend that Americans seem to think everything is disposable. Because I don't have an actual shop and operate out of my apartment (I currently have more than 40 vacs in my 1BR apartment), I cannot pick up any name brand dealer status and thus only handle used vacuums. My point is that I constantly pick up used vacuums on the side of the road that typically only need to be cleaned, replace a belt/bag/filter, and they work perfectly fine and I have a piece of merchandise worth $30-$75 that I will sell within the week. I do this about a dozen times a week in my free time and wind up making more money do it than I make at my regular job. As for my experience, all the vac shops I frequent routinely carry used vacs that can range anywhere from $35 to $150 but they don't sell used high end vacs. I usually wind up picking those up and selling them on eBay. This way, they have product for a discerning, thinking, buyer who wants a product that will serve them well and last a long time and they also have a product for the cheap people who don't know any better and don't want to know any better and/or stupid vac collectors who come in and go "ooh, I don't have a Hoover Windtunnel Dual V"... Wait! That's me!