Every shop owner has bought a guitar they were sure would move in a fortnight and watched it sit on the wall for eight months. Trade-in pricing is not about knowing the market — it is about knowing your market, which is a much smaller and much more knowable thing.
The four numbers that decide the offer
- What comparable units sold for in your shop, not on a global marketplace with different buyers and no setup included.
- Realistic refurbishment cost. A setup, a fret dress, new pads, a case. This is real money and it belongs in the cost basis.
- Expected days on the floor for that category. A student trumpet in July is not the same asset as a student trumpet in late August.
- The margin you need, which is a policy, not a feeling.
Offer = expected sale price − refurb cost − required margin, adjusted for how long you will be carrying it.
Refurbishment is where margin quietly disappears
The most common error is treating bench time on a traded instrument as free because it happens in-house. It is not free — it is capacity you could have sold to a customer. Log the job against the unit so the parts and hours land on its cost basis, and your margin report tells the truth.
Grade condition consistently, or comparables are useless
Pick a scale, write down what each grade means, and use the same words every time. Photograph the instrument at intake. Six months later, when you are deciding what to offer for a similar horn, a consistent grade plus photographs is worth more than anyone's memory.
Seasonality is not optional
Band instruments have a rental and resale season. Student guitars spike before Christmas. Buying a category out of season means paying for storage in the form of dead capital. Days-on-floor data by category tells you exactly how much that costs you.
Where to put the numbers
Trade-in management keeps the offer, refurb cost, and eventual sale price on one unit card. Used gear appraisal turns your own past deals into comparables. Shop bookkeeping shows whether used stock is genuinely outperforming new.
Start pricing from evidence
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