I don't see the point of owning your own Pawn Shop.

[Nefai]

I am levels 51, 34, 32 in the various districts. I have around $100,000. And I still haven't bought a Pawn Shop. (Well, I did briefly buy a Pawn Shop to see what it was all about, but I quickly reloaded a prior save.)

I just don't see the value. I can manually place a limited amount of items in the Pawn Shop, and manually set the prices, and take a little extra time to make a little extra money. Or I could just continue mass selling items to the existing Pawn Shop owner for instant cash, and a little less profit.

Seems to me that all the time spent managing Pawn Shops is better spent doing more auctions.

[Lanosa]

Own a pawn shop allows you win more money by pricing your items higher their value. For common might not notice, but from unusual forward you'll see huge differences.

[Obi-Wonka Nobi]

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[Pentagramm]

Also, you don't need to do the managing manual. For that there is your lacky in the shop. Just activate the automatic in the laptop. He will sell the items to about 130-180% of marketvalue, depending on specialization. You just have to put the items in the shop-warehouse. That's way faster than selling one at a time and you can do that all night long, no waiting for buisness-hours:

[dethmaiden]

i see ops point, i have all 3 and if you have them all full and all storage full youres just hording waiting for things to sell. it would be nice to still have an option to offload even if you know youre going to make a loss.

[galadon3]

Originally posted by dethmaiden:

i see ops point, i have all 3 and if you have them all full and all storage full youres just hording waiting for things to sell. it would be nice to still have an option to offload even if you know youre going to make a loss.

Wich isnt the OPs point, since he claims it doesn't pay to buy even one

[Wind Lane]

Originally posted by dethmaiden:

i see ops point, i have all 3 and if you have them all full and all storage full youres just hording waiting for things to sell. it would be nice to still have an option to offload even if you know youre going to make a loss.

How are you keeping all three stocked? I can get 3-4 auctions done a day and everything gets sold in no time flat even with that.

I mean, you're talking close to 300 items needed to keep all three shops stocked with their warehouses full. Just today I delivered over 60 items to the biggest pawn shop and went to deliver over 60 more the next game day and there were just 2-4 extra large items in the warehouse because of limited display space for them - everything else had plenty of empty slots on the pawn shop floor.

I just never seem to get ahead anywhere close to being able to keep additional shops stocked.

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by Nefai:

I just don't see the value. I can manually place a limited amount of items in the Pawn Shop, and manually set the prices, and take a little extra time to make a little extra money. Or I could just continue mass selling items to the existing Pawn Shop owner for instant cash, and a little less profit.

Seems to me that all the time spent managing Pawn Shops is better spent doing more auctions.

The value comes from being able to have your own pawnshop fully automated with the employee. Once set up, the only two things you need to do is offload your vehicle with a single click, vs clicking on however many items you want to sell to someone else's pawnshop. And interact with the laptop inside to collect your money.

Also, depending on when you make it to an auction, verifying and repairing all items may bring you past 9 pm. In that case, you're unable to sell your items unless you clean everything up and make it to a pawnshop before 9. (There are instances where items left in a vehicle may bounce out when the day changes causing that item to vanish). In your own pawnshop you can offload your vehicle in the pawnshop storage at any time and items can be automatically listed the next morning by your employee.

I see the benefit, however, everyone has their own style of playing.

[Kouki_Monster]

Originally posted by Pentagramm:

Also, you don't need to do the managing manual. For that there is your lacky in the shop. Just activate the automatic in the laptop. He will sell the items to about 130-180% of marketvalue, depending on specialization. You just have to put the items in the shop-warehouse. That's way faster than selling one at a time and you can do that all night long, no waiting for buisness-hours:

In my case, I have not seen him price the items at even 100% of market value. I set it to auto, and then any high-value items I take off the shelf, and price them myself to 100-150% value. My shop is fully upgraded, so not sure if it's random or maybe the lower % range is a bit lower than 100%

That being said, the pawn shops are definitely essential to progress in the game and allow for a more relaxed gameplay. Before owning the pawnshop, I felt my playstyle was like a constant speed run. Now I even save a few items in my garage or home as a sort of bank so when I have enough of a certain type, I switch the specialization and offload those items at the pawnshop. At one point, I was able to upgrade my fixing tool and upgraded the items I had, and got more money out of them.

I know that seems unnecessary, but I enjoy it and it adds a bit of gameplay value to me.

[Pentagramm]

Originally posted by Kouki_Monster:

In my case, I have not seen him price the items at even 100% of market value. I set it to auto, and then any high-value items I take off the shelf, and price them myself to 100-150% value. My shop is fully upgraded, so not sure if it's random or maybe the lower % range is a bit lower than 100%
[...]

Lower than market value wouldn't make sense in any case and I have not seen that, although I don't look at the prices in the shops, I rarely enter them at all.
But I just checked and every item in my main shop are at about 150% market value.

[Blackcobalt]

I'm finding my pawn shop is always empty. Items are being sold quickly even when the prices are high. I have to keep running around to bid on auctions to fill the pawn shop. What happens when you own all pawn shops is it worth playing. I hope at some point I can train a someone to go to auctions and bid and move the items to warehouse.

As it stands running around on the map to keep the pawnshop stocked is to much.

[Sylvaa]

You make a lot of money with a pawn shop, but it feels slow when you first set it up, I am pulling in around 8-10k a day on the first shop, nearly always fully stocked, some items take a few days to sell though. I bought the other 2 but found I could never fill all 3, anywhere close to being full and income didn't really go up all that much. There is far too much busywork getting the items (which is the point of the game, storage hunter) from the auction to the shop.

What it really needs is more staff, someone at the shop to verify and clean stuff, so the player can concentrate of storage lockers, and dip in and out of checking/cleaning when they feel like it.

The large truck helps, but by the time I could both afford it and have the reputation with the region, I was pretty bored with all the donkey work.

[Blackcobalt]

Hmm. I assumed that having a pawn shop that I would see npc;s coming in and trying to sell random items. That would take the stress off of you trying to run around like a mad dog and keep the other pawn shops full. Atm i can only focus on 1 shop the other two will sit empty.

Or maybe I get a random phone call where a npc calls me and offers a locked shipping containers or a trade ad that i see on the laptop. Plus most of the containers atm are empty or have a few scraps and have nothing in them.

I hope the dev's work something out with content.

[Blackcobalt]

I've noticed that with a pick up truck it takes numerous trips from auction to the pawnshop to keep it full. If I had a larger truck I could pack it fuller then I could a pick up truck and able to stop at the pawn store less times during the day to keep it full.

[Obi-Wonka Nobi]

Originally posted by Blackcobalt:

I've noticed that with a pick up truck it takes numerous trips from auction to the pawnshop to keep it full. If I had a larger truck I could pack it fuller then I could a pick up truck and able to stop at the pawn store less times during the day to keep it full.

Well.... maybe... it depends on how you play! I like trying to fill one shop at a time and play at a fairly relaxed pace. If I take extra time and organize the largest items in the box truck first carefully, I can almost always stuff 2 auctions worth of goods into the truck. It may take winning 3 or 4 local auctions a day for a 3 or 4 days before the shop is filled before I have a few items left in the truck that won't fit in the garage. I go home & sleep at 10 or 11 pm. I've read others have a strategy where they bid on every auction possible daily, and don't bother to start trying to verify, load or deliver goods until after everything ends at 9 pm - then work all night to try to fill as many shops as possible. Just depends on your style. :)

[Boshedo]

I still have the beginning pawn shop unlocked and all tools leveled up, even the lock pick. I just spend my time in that area keeping my shop stocked fully. Maybe at some point I'll focus on the other shops to level them up or the territory. I will need to level up that one district so I can buy the van. I don't really like going to the shipping containers though.