Constant escrap load opportunity. input welcomed!

I made a contact when I ran into an auction today.

This guy needs to clear out his warehouse around a bi monthly basis...
Says he needs 2 pallets of Computers. mostly Dell Optiplex gx220's which have pretty much zero resale value. (atleast here in the states!)
its a 50/50 chance that they have either HDD or RAM in them.

and one pallet of misc. items such as printers/fax machines/ phones yadda.

he asked me if i would take them off his hands.
He threw a number of $7 per unit at me. I'm assuming he meant just the comps.

I'm going to try and bring him down to $6 per.

Never discussed a price on the misc. items.

He's sending me a list of his goods tomorrow.

thoughts? I'd love to takem for 6 but its still pretty much worth it at 7 right?

I would also want to pay $6 each and throw in the extras for free. Depending on your situation things could be different. There has been a lot of discussion of the p4 mb's being a lower grade and therefore a lower price or lower price comming. Having said that a regular supply of computers to break down for a one man operation like me would be great. Best to you, Mike.

Like the quote say's at the bottom of mikes post " PROFIT BEGINS WHEN YOU BUY NOT WHEN YOU SELL" I would try $5 you can always go up but rarely can you go back down. Good Luck wb

Depending on whether the computers are complete, I've been noticing that a lot of them have the HD's pulled out. I would say scrap wise there is $10 to $15. value in them depending on how well you break them down and market them. Printers might have a little value if they have card readers.

If those towers have dvdrw drives in them it wouldnt be a bad deal. But if they are just MB cpu and maybe pci cards I think $7 would be a little high. I wouldnt pay more than half of shred price for the rest of the stuff.

Just got off the phone with they guy.

He agreed to $5 a piece. I'm picking them up monday morning.
I should have went lower as he was quick to agree. Especially considering that its a grab bag whether or not there will be either RAM or HDD in the units.
He told me he's not ACTIVELY looking into these things to tear out memory but who knows.
if they're all carcasses... then I'll eat it on this first deal and go lower the next time around.

We'll see when Mon. rolls around

That's great news. Take pictures, Mike.

I did a quick glance over of the materials that i got and its not looking too good.

picked up 49 towers today at $5 a piece.

about 35 of them are dell GX 280s. it looks like most have been gutted. Leaving only the mother board, cdrom/floppy drives, video cards.
Half of the CPU's look like they've been taken out.

the rest of them are really old pentium 2/3's which look to be pretty much intact. heavy @$$ towers.

He warned me that most of them were pretty bare on the inside when i got there.
i told him that I'd keep my word and buy everything at the price that I had told him on the phone, but that moving forward I'd have to adjust the pricing depending on what I saw in this current batch.
I know that I pretty much am just hoping to break even on this deal.

He appreciated that I was honest and a man of my word and he told me he'd be calling me the next time he has another bundle and understood that I'm going to be coming with a much lower price.

I think I'm going to have to go with a straight per/lb price on the items with him. maybe closer to shred...

Once I get time I'll catalogue what I make out of this.

I'll consider this one an education

Exactly what I would have expected, not as good as you hope but an education and a little profit. Congrats, Mike.

Aslong as they have the MB in them you should be close to breaking even. IF you want to make sure you make a profit look at all the cdrom drives and see if any are DVDRW drives. Also check all the hard drives and ram. Ill buy any you get for more than scrap value if they meet what im looking for.

throw some memory in the gx 280's. if they work we are currently getting around 25 dollars ea for them with no harddrive

Quote:

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Originally Posted by directrecycle

throw some memory in the gx 280's. if they work we are currently getting around 25 dollars ea for them with no harddrive

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Really?

"Something is only as worth as much as someone will pay for it" is what my father always told me.

Where are you finding these buyers? Ebay?

I'll sell you some ram! I have a TON of 256mb sticks! I also have a few cpus...Hit me up I'll make you a deal, just have to tell me what you need....and I'll see if I have it.

I could use a p3 and some ram myself :)

I think if your getting the systems @ $5 or less(even partially gutted) with other scrap free you can do alright as long as it doesn't take you away from other opportunities. Not a huge money maker but keeps you busy and making a profit.