Smell The Coffee

Well I think that this post will be met with both positive and negative opinions.First let me say that I am a former yard owner and wanted to give you this side of the scrap metal business.First let me say that I would not bring any thing to a yard that I did not know the price before we loaded it on a truck,that being said,the big multi location yards are the in my opinion the worst yards to sell any thing but tin / shread.These guys are just workers and really don't care if you sell them your goods or not.They really don't have the authority or knowlage of the current market up's and downs,so if you are in a area where you have the owner or manager of the yard that is easy to talk to and deal with that is where you want to sell your money metals.Now to the important stuff,we never posted prices and the reason for that was dealer protection,I never felt that a Plummer or a/c tech should get the same price as a scraper that brought in material on a steady basis so we protected our regulars so that they could make a profit from these guys buying there stuff.You guy's are the meat and potatoes of the scrap metal industry and remember a yard wants regulars that bring them weight so the guy's on here that want prices posted are in my opinion missing the big picture.Having a good relationship with the yard owner will benefit you much more,Let me add that if you are shopping price you should have some weight,I would never bring in for example 4 lbs of brass I would hold it until I had 25 lbs.Remember regular customers that bring in weight on a regular basis get paid better,then the once in a while seller and they should.

I know I spelled smell wrong

I changed it for you --Mick the Moderator

Whats the difference if I bring in brass vs a tech that brings in brass though? Why should they get a better price? I go to the yard 4 to 5 days a week, my product should be worth the same no?

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that scrappers should get better pricing since they come in more often and with larger quantities.

Ok, I misunderstood. I read the post again and I see what he's saying bout why they never posted the prices.

thanks for the insights 1956! here in NJ most yards show favoritism to the contractors over the scrapper. but in the end, you are 100% correct it is all about the weight. if you regularly have a lot of stuff and it looks clean, they don't discriminate.

I agree your regular and large quantity suppliers should get preferred rates. I do not agree that a business, any business, should not publish their rates. I don't trust a business that is ashamed to publish what their price for their product is (ashamed is my general opinion and not an accusation, and this principle applies to any industry, not just scrap). You don't hide your rates to protect your regulars, you publish your normal rates, and negotiate a premium with your regulars that is obviously not published (by "You" I don't mean you specifically 1956, I mean a business entity). That is pretty typical business practice accross most industries. So I agree with your premise, but not the execution. I think it is a better practive for a business, or scrap yard, to publish their current and up to date rates on metals, and negotiate a premium to those that take the initiative to approach them to do so. That is the yard I want to do business with.

Our local yard does not list their prices. I asked about this and they told me it was because customers would look at the price list and come up with all kinds of crazy things about what this and that actually was.

Their solution was for people to bring it in and they would tell them what they pay for that particular thing.

For example. I was there a while back and a guy brought in a Gaylord box of transformers. He was selling them as copper transformers. They were large transformers and he had bumped one with a grinder to show the copper. As it turned out the yard sampled the other half of the transformer and it had aluminum windings in the bottom larger half.

Another time a guy said he seen they were paying $2.85 for green computer boards. This guy had green boards, but they were out of monitors. Some companies used green boards in monitors, but they were a different color of green and obviously out of monitors. He ended up taking them to court for false advertising. The yard won the case, but took down the price list because they were fighting a legal battle that was not necessary. There is no law here requiring you to post prices.

Another thing is that I have had people ask me what I got for this or that and what I was paid was far more than what they got. They do not understand that scrap yards by their very nature deal in volume. The more volume and better sorted your stuff is the less they have to handle it.

here by me. what tends to happen
or at least, what i think tends to happen is this:

the big building/plumbing/electrical contractors & companies dealing in metal come to the scrap yard once a year etc but they bring in a LOT of stuff
and the yard owners/managers etc get all excited when they see this large amount & many times i suspect that these guys get better prices than us ordinary scrappers.

but the way i see it
we may not bring in such large quantities but we are REGULAR
if you had to add up all the stuff we bring in over a period of 12 months, then we might well be bringing in much more than these one shot wonders.

i guess it was stores on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood that coined the phrase "If you have to ask(the price) you Can't afford it!".

I'd also venture to say "if you have to ask, you're Not gonna like it" ; )

The thing that you want to do is get those big company's as your customers,if you could pay them the same as a yard and still make a profit while saving them the time and expence of going to a scrap yard works for both,but you have to sell them on that concept,and when you start bringing in those loads you can negotiate a better price.