The Penny Man

John Friel

Spring is auction season where I live. Here in rural PA, auctions are a big, tourist-drawing deal. We’re famous for them. Quilts, antiques, real estate, livestock—you name it, we’ll auction it. Our volunteer fire companies put donated or commissioned goods under the gavel at yearly “mud sales.” Wear your wellies.

An auction is a social event, almost a theatrical experience. Good auctioneers know how to milk an audience for every available dollar. They know when to coax, when to scold, when to make ’em laugh. They know what to highlight, what to sell one at a time, what to toss in with a bunch of whatever.

Most auctions have a Penny Man who's agreed to pay 1 cent for stuff nobody wants. Usually it’s miscellaneous junk—screws, screwdrivers, hinges, widgets, flowerpots. But sometimes it’s a sofa or a lawn mower. Whatever it is, if it draws no bids, it’s the Penny Man’s. Sometimes he’s stuck with a truckload of crap, sometimes he’s way ahead.

A grower can also have—or be—a Penny Man. Even in horticulture, there’s a place for this peculiar skill set. Our industry’s version is a grower or retailer with a market for stuff you’d normally toss. He comes, he looks, he offers, you counter. He leaves with product once priced at $50 a tray, his for $5 or $10. But, you console yourself—it’s better than paying to have it hauled to the landfill.

A few common-sense caveats apply. Your Penny Man’s market should not abut or overlap yours. Products he acquires should not bear your name or logo. In a previous life, I used to—reluctantly—call a guy from a neighboring state, who knew not to tell anyone where he got it.

Elsewhere in this magazine you’ll find sexier bottom-line fatteners. There’s nothing glamorous about the Penny Man and it’s a little embarrassing to admit that you even know one. As vendors, we’re constantly chided by pundits to rebuff all pressure to part with our products at anything less than full price. A discount, they huff, is a self-inflicted wound, a result of poor planning.

Well, yes. And no.

Stuff happens. Overproduction happens: An order you’ve had for years is wooed away by a competitor. A computer glitch books an order twice or for the wrong date. A good customer abruptly sells to a developer. Stress happens: A weekend waterer oversleeps, or a solenoid seizes, and good pots are suddenly too ugly to sell. You revive them, but the sales window just slammed shut.

Resisting discounts sounds good, but isn’t always practical. Everybody gives and expects discounts. There are discounts for volume, early orders, early payment, closeouts, holidays. From pajamas to Panicum, mattresses to Monarda, it’s how we live.

Despite a decade of PBS and VMI, megaretailers still have racks of price-slashed ugly pots and packs. Be it last year’s cars or day-old baked goods, if you didn't overproduce, you underproduced. If you’ve nothing to toss at season’s end, you left money on the table.

The point of any discount is to make or enhance a sale. In extreme cases, it’s to move an asset that’s become a liability. Cut your losses, reclaim that space, move on. If your margins are so good that you can afford to eat, donate, compost or dumpster all your “oops” leftovers, congratulations. You’ve planned very well indeed.

But if you’re like most people, you may want to have a Penny Man in your back pocket. He’s sort of the nuclear option of discounts, but he pays better than the landfill. GP

John Friel is marketing manager for Emerald Coast Growers and a freelance writer.