BARO Pricing Guide
Listing your item for the right price is one of the most important parts of successfully lending on BARO. If you’ve never used a peer-to-peer marketplace before, it can take a little while to get into a rhythm, but we’ve compiled a list of tips that will help you get started. In general, lenders tend to price their items at about 15% to 35% of the original retail price. Unless the item is especially rare or popular, we don’t recommend pricing your listing at above 50% of the original retail price as it makes it harder to entice potential borrowers. You can edit the price of your listings at any time through the listing page.
When you’re listing, you’ll be asked to input a price for both a 7 and 14-day borrow period. Typically, lenders list at a lower average price per day for longer borrow periods.
July 3, 2023
Things to Consider
1. Original and Current Value
The best starting point for setting your prices is to think of them in relation to the original value of the item. As mentioned, 15% to 35% of the original value tends to be the sweet spot for pricing listings. However, if it’s an older item that is available on resale platforms for significantly less, we recommend taking those percentages of the current value. There’s no wrong way to do it, it just depends on what feels right to you.
2. Condition
If your item has any damage, marks, or stains, that should be reflected in the listing price. This should also be mentioned in the item description and photos so that the borrower knows what to expect ahead of time.
3. Popularity
Items that are extremely popular tend to have more borrow requests on average, so listing them at a higher starting price might help to control the frequency at which you’re lending.
4. Comparable Items
Do a quick search on the Baro app for items of the same brand, style, or condition to see how other lenders have priced their items.
5. Frequency
How frequently you plan to lend out your item also contributes to how you might set your prices. If you know you want to lend the item out on an ongoing basis, you might be more likely to set your prices a bit lower compared to if you only want to lend out your item a couple of times a year.
6. Cost of Cleaning
You know best when it comes to cleaning your items. They should always be in clean, wearable condition by the time they reach the borrower, but we defer to you on how frequently you deem that necessary. Some items will need to be dry cleaned after each borrow, and some items can go a couple of borrows without showing signs of wear. We typically recommend setting aside $5 or so from each borrow towards cleaning, but if you know the item will need to be cleaned after each wear, you should reflect that in your listing price. Depending on where you go, dry cleaning for a single garment can cost between $10 - $20.
________________________________________
Examples
1. You purchased a dress for $300 original retail and have only worn it once. The item has no signs of wear and tear, is in practically like-new condition, and is a material that doesn’t need to be dry cleaned frequently. It also happens to be an extremely popular item that is sold out everywhere, and you plan to lend it on a consistent basis. For something like this, we would recommend starting with a 7-day listing price of $60 (20%) and a 14-day listing price of $90 (30%), and adjusting your prices based on how frequently you’re receiving borrow requests.
2. You have a vintage designer dress that is valued at about $1,000. It’s a rare dress that you’d only like to lend out on occasion, but it does have some small signs of wear and tear and will require professional dry cleaning (about $15) after each borrow. For something like this, we would recommend a 7-day listing price of $250 (25%) and a 14-day listing price of $315 (30% + $15 cleaning fee).