Ropecon’s Traditional Flea Market

One of the features of Ropecon’s Vendor Hall is the traditional Flea Market. Attendees can bring their old items that no longer spark joy to be sold at the Flea Market during the convention, as long as those items fit the nature and themes of Ropecon. Suitable items include props for larps, role-playing game books, games etc.

Flea Market is not intended for professional sales or resales: all items must belong to individual sellers themselves and be either used or otherwise no-longer needed.

Good sales and good finds!

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us at kirpputori@ropecon.fi

How does it work?

The concept behind the Flea Market is simple: you bring your items to the counter and Ropecon’s staff sells them for you. Flea Market is located in the Vendor Hall and shares its opening hours with those of the Vendor Hall. Items can be brought directly to the counter where our staff will take them off your hands. Be prepared for crowds when the Flea Market opens on Friday.

The Kirppu system

At year 2019, there was a major overhaul in how Ropecon’s Flea Market operates, when Ropecon started using the Kirppu system, which utilises price tags with barcodes printed at home. Sellers, aka attendees who want to bring items to be sold at the Flea Market, must have an account at Kompassi in order to use the Kirppu system.

By introducing the Kirppu system we managed to make the Flea Market easier to operate both for sellers as well as for our staff. Unfortunately Kirppu works only in Finnish, so if you need help with using it, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Registration to Kirppu closed 23:59 on 27th of July. After that point items can no longer be registered for sale and prices cannot be changed, so take care while registering your items. You can register items and change prices until the deadline by accessing the “Tavaralista” (Item List) page. Barcodes and price tags can be printed out even after the deadline as long as they were generates before it. Please note that item registration might be closed before the deadline if the total number of items exceeds our maximum limitations. Please register your items as soon as possible!  

Price tags and the item list

Since Ropecon staff is going to be selling your items for you, please adhere to following instructions: 

There is limited space available at the Flea Market, so each seller can have max 15 items for sale at any given time.

• An item to be sold is, for example, a box of cards that are sold as one unit. 
• A single piece of clothing or a special card sold on its own counts as one item. 
• You can register as many items as you want within the Kirppu system, and if you have more than 15 items to be sold they should all be registered beforehand. Even though you can only have 15 items for sale at a time, after your previous items have been sold, you can bring more items to the Flea Market.

If there is very little space left, Flea Market staff has the right to refuse taking in large items. Please use your own discretion at home when choosing which items to bring to the Flea Market.

Sellers must attach price tags to their items themselves before the convention. Price tags with barcodes can be printed out from the “Tavaralista” (Item List) page of the Kirppu system, either for single items or for bundles. A single item in this case refers to one item that has one price tag attached to it, such as a book, a deck of cards or a bag of miniature figurines. 

• Label each item an unique and accurate manner, so that Flea Market staff can easily identify your item in case the price tag comes off. 
• Do not use the same barcode for multiple items: create a unique one for each item. 
• Attach the price tag securely so that it will stay on even when the item is being handled and inspected at the Flea Market. If the price tag is lost and the item cannot be unequivocally identified, it is removed from sale. 
• Barcodes must be printed big enough and in good quality so that they can be scanned with all barcode readers. 
• If you are selling bundles of multiple books, miniature figurines or other items, attach these items together in a secure way so that none of them gets lost. 

Labeling your items

You can improve the chances of your items selling and make Flea Market staff’s job easier by labeling your items accurately. At times, price tags can come off for one reason or another, but it might be possible to reattach a found price tag to the item if labeled properly. In some cases it might even be possible to sell an item without any price tag if it has been labeled with such accuracy that it can be unequivocally identified through the Kirppu system. If there is no price tag attached and the item cannot be identified through the system, it will be removed from sale. 

• Remember that your item should be identifiable not only among your other items, but among items sold by others as well. Labeling your items simply as “stuffed animal” or “dress” does not provide much information to the staff when there are probably dozens of other similar items being sold at the Flea Market. 
• Use the names of series and/or characters and other descriptive words when possible. For example, “Pikachu figurine” is already a lot better than just “Pokémon figurine”, and “a sitting down Pikachu figurine” is even better.
• If you have multiple similar items for sale, try to distinguish them from each other in some way, for example by character names or colours. “Sasuke keychain” and “Sakura keychain” are a lot better way to label items than “Naruto keychain 1” and “Naruto keychain 2”. Only use numbers if your items are actually identical. 

By providing accurate information about items our staff is able to keep track of your sales accurately and make sure that sales are attributed to correct sellers. Seller’s identity is always checked while bringing in items and collecting the money. Remember to bring along an ID with a picture, such as passport, health insurance card with a picture (e.g. Kela card), or student ID!

Tagging your items

General instructions

• Price tags with barcodes must be clearly marked and easily found on the item. Barcodes will be scanned both when bringing items in and collecting items from the Flea Market as well as at the register. Please attach price tags in a way that makes scanning barcodes as quick and easy as possible. Always attach the barcodes on the outside of the cover on books, manga, CDs and other items that can be opened.  
• Make sure that price tags are printed out properly. Do not use washed out, grainy, striped or otherwise incorrectly printed barcodes.
• Use only black ink and white paper when printing out price tags. Some barcode readers cannot always read barcodes printed in or on colour. 
• Use enough tape. Barcodes on miniature figurines and other small items can easily come off when people inspect them at the Flea Market. If possible, use enough tape at least both long edges of the price tag to prevent it from coming off.
• Use good quality tape, not decorative tape or washi tape. 

Price tag sizes

Price tags can be printed in two sizes (6 cm and 9 cm). Sometimes barcodes might print out too small, in which case some barcode readers will not be able to read them. 

It can be difficult to attach price tags on items without any packaging or flat surfaces, or on items such as stuffed animals and figurines. Here are some tips:

• Do not attach price tags on round surfaces, for example around the leg of a stuffed animal or around a rolled up poster. It makes the barcodes unreadable. 
• If there are no flat surfaces on the item, you can attach the price tag on the surface of a clear plastic bag containing the item or on a string.
• The best way to attach price tags on clothes is by using a safety pin or a string ran through the care label. Do not use regular pins! 
• If the price tag is hanging freely from the item, use contact paper or cardboard backing to make it stronger, since plain paper is easily ripped. 
• If you use string, use plenty of it. Using regular sewing thread is not recommended, since it can be easily snapped and knots can be unraveled. 
• Do not tape price tags directly on clothing or stuffed animals: they won’t stick! 
• Items in containers, such as wigs in plastic bags or items in boxes, should come with a picture of the item along with the price tag to prevent them being constantly opened at the Flea Market. 

Commission

Ropecon takes a commission from the items sold at the flea market:

• 50 cents for products with a price of 5 € or less

• 1 euro for products with a price more than 5 €.

If your items do not sell, you won’t be charged a commission either. It is good to take the commission into account when pricing the products. Use prices like 3€, 5€ or 30€, don’t price your items to 2,99€ or 29€.

Ropecon staff are not responsible for items brought to the flea market, so please note that you bring your items to the flea market to sell at your own risk. Only cash is accepted at the flea market. Messukeskus has two ATMs.

Bringing and taking away your items

Remember your photo ID, e.g. passport, ID card, driver’s license or student card.

At check-in, sellers bring their pre-registered and price-labeled products to the flea market personnel, where the barcodes are scanned. Please take into consideration that you need to show each item to a sales representative. Remove excess packaging before coming to the table so we can avoid long lines. After each item is scanned, you can leave the products at the table. It is not possible to register new products on site. You can bring your items to the flea market at any time during the event, starting at 3 p.m. on Friday.

The flea market is open on Friday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., on Saturday from 10am to 7pm and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Items can be brought in and picked up at any time during this period. You can monitor your sales in real time in the Kirppu Mobile tab. When you want to stop selling, show your ID to personnel at the checkout and you will receive your sales revenue. Use either the product list on your mobile device or a printed list, to find your remaining products at the flea market, and bring them to the checkout. Each item will then be scanned one last time so that the barcodes of the products are removed from the Kirppu system.

Sales proceeds and remaining items must be claimed no later than on Sunday at 4.30 p.m.

NOTE! Everything must be picked up by Sun 4.30 p.m., so please arrive well in advance. There will most likely be a line! If you do not want to take back some of your unsold items, you can leave them at the flea market.

Remember to claim your money on time

The items and money must be picked up no later than Sunday at 4:30 p.m., because the sales area closes at 5:00 p.m. After that we can not guarantee that staff will have time to process accounts. Any unsold items will be moved to lost and found, where they can be retrieved on Sunday at 5:00 p.m. at the earliest.

Please bring your ID so that employees can ensure that the correct people are paid.