Hills:
I've done all 3, depends on what you get right?
A 10 year old laptop with and 80 GB HD and 1 GB sticks of RAM in it is most assuredly not as sweet as an i5 with a 500Gb HD and (2) 4GB sticks of RAM in it right?
Even on the 10 year old, I'll get:
$1.50 for the screen
HD Board
HD stripped at .30/lb
A heavier and thus more profitable MOBO
I'll get a CPU with pins and no heatsink
I'll get any aluminum off it (and some cases are full on aluminum)
All the wire in it
Two sticks of RAM that are scrap to add to the pile.
Generally a Copper/Alum heatsink
Any steel screws or steel parts
CD/DVD Rom drive at scrap rate
A nice heavy Li-Ion Battery
In the end- Far more than $2 bucks.
I have flipped laptops, that ended up costing me a HD, a Carrier for said HD, I have to either update the RAM or Replace it, troubleshoot it, clean it, completely wipe it and put a fresh OS on it, list it, pack it, ship it, and pray I don't get screwed by a scammer on Ebay (Find some of my old posts, you'll see I'm not a fan of selling computers on Ebay anymore)
Then you can say "Ahh.. well skip Ebay- do CL instead" Yup been there too, now I have to wait for 6 guys to never show as I hang out in a parking lot, and the guy that does says "Meh.. I'll give you Half of what you are asking.. take it or leave it."
Talk about having to capture your time figuring in making $ right?
So Yes- multiple ways to angle this game. Lots of time, resale of full computers ends up not being worth it to ME personally. There are 50 guys within a 50 mile radius that will sell you a rehabbed computer. I'd rather maximize parts on quick sale and scrap the rest with the relationships I have built with my e-waste buyers.
Will I toss an i5 CPU into my scrap bin? Heck no. I'll Ebay that badboy, ship it the next day and move along. Have I found that the hours and hours of "rehabbing" laptops that have taken weeks or months to sell worth it- not usually. Sometimes, but not usually.
With a $2 laptop generally I can sell the HD and RAM alone for more than the $2 bucks. If I had 50 of them, I guarantee I'd make far more than $100 total on them.
I will note that I have a local R2 facility, I drive my stuff to them, some I ship out- but probably 95% of my items are sold local. In fact, I introduced THEM to one of the big buyers on here and they now sell quite a bit to him. It's all about the hustle, making the connections. If I did not have a local buyer- would the game change for me? Slightly, but before I had this relationship I was shipping everything and still beating $2/per on a laptop.
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