- Board grading
"My recommendation - (if anyone cares) quit counting other people's money and focus on what you can do to improve your business model."
Straying a bit off the original topic but veering off where others have been, here would be my comment.
I had to decide if I was going to be a hoarder or a seller. I had to chose the middle of the road on this. Why? Freight costs. With no acceptable buyers within 140 miles, my best choice, in money and time, is to ship out all of my material, except for light tin/iron/etc. I am a hoarder until I can fill multiple pallets/gaylords. When I have that much material, I become a seller. I can't afford to sit on material and take the chance that the price "might" go up. I need to sell to guarantee that the price won't go down on what I have on hand.
I started shipping out one 68 pound box by Fed-X every time I was able. I then realized that if I shipped multiple boxes at one time I would be able to save some money. I never thought I could ship out a pallet/Gaylord until I tallied up the number of pounds that I had been shipping. I started with one pallet/Gaylord at a time. That worked well. What could I do next? After a few emails with a few different members on this forum, I realized that I should see if I could send multiple pallets/Gaylords at one time. Again my freight rate dropped.
I have no control over what happens to prices in the metal markets. I do have control over all of my costs though. As strange as it may seem, I am now able to ship power supplies in pallet loads and receive more money (after freight!) than I can by selling them to the local yards in my area. When I can decrease my freight rates by over 60%, that makes me more money than worrying about if my buyer is underpaying me. Everyone in the food chain has to make some money. I would rather that the buyers that I ship material to make a lot of money. That is the only way that they will be there tomorrow when I need them.
This is one step I have taken to improve my business model.
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