ALWAYS include the drive in your auction bids

**auminer** · 02-26-2013, 08:33 PM

Well, I won a lot of switches in an auction... 15 bucks for about 17 switches. Less than a buck apiece. I made out like a bandit, right?

Nope. The pickup was 80 miles from here, so 160 round trip puts it at ~~$150 breakeven. But they're 10/100 switches, so a big premium is not gonna happen.

Oh, well..... ya live , ya learn.

**Phantoms001** · 02-26-2013, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by auminer

Well, I won a lot of switches in an auction... 15 bucks for about 17 switches. Less than a buck apiece. I made out like a bandit, right?

Nope. The pickup was 80 miles from here, so 160 round trip puts it at ~~$150 breakeven. But they're 10/100 switches, so a big premium is not gonna happen.

Oh, well..... ya live , ya learn.

You lost me a little bit on this one. Why would it take you anything near 150 to get something 160 miles away? At 20 MPG you are looking at 8 gallons of gas. 8 x 4.00 a gallon is 32.oo. If you want to stop by Red Lobster on the way you are not really giving yourself a fair assessment.

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-26-2013, 11:52 PM

maybe he drives a semi that gets 4 miles to the gallon? Or maybe one of them giant dumptrucks that get 4 gallons to the mile?

**KzScrapper** · 02-27-2013, 07:25 AM

If you are a legit business then the IRS Standard Mileage Deduction comes into play...55.5 cents/mile

**auminer** · 02-27-2013, 08:10 AM

My original post should've been more clear... The cost of the item ($15) the cost of gas ($40) and the cost of shipping to any buyer($80-100), the total cost would come up to about 150. That's not even figuring in any cost of my time.

I wouldn't have bid on those switches solo, but there was a juicy lot of CPUs at the same location that I thought I was going to win as well.

So my point, I guess, is always assume that the individual lot I'm bidding on is the only one I'll win, and figure my costs off of that assumption before bidding.

**Immulmen** · 02-27-2013, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by auminer

My original post should've been more clear... The cost of the item ($15) the cost of gas ($40) and the cost of shipping to any buyer($80-100), the total cost would come up to about 150. That's not even figuring in any cost of my time.

I wouldn't have bid on those switches solo, but there was a juicy lot of CPUs at the same location that I thought I was going to win as well.

So my point, I guess, is always assume that the individual lot I'm bidding on is the only one I'll win, and figure my costs off of that assumption before bidding.

$80 to $100 in shipping? how much do the boards weigh from 17 switches???? What grade are the boards?
Chris

**Electrowaste** · 02-27-2013, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by auminer

I wouldn't have bid on those switches solo, but there was a juicy lot of CPUs at the same location that I thought I was going to win as well.

I just did this same thing two days ago! There was a lot of computers that were about to go for super cheap on GovDeals. I bid on them, a lot of keyboards/mice, and a lot of regular office phones. The pick-up was about 120 miles away from me. I lost all the other things because of not relaizing that the auction was going to end early because of a timezone diffrence but won the phones. I ended up driving about 4 hours total to pick up a big box of a variety of landline phones and some mystery phone box thingy (Post soon to follow on this.) I agree, you live and you learn. It has been fun taking the phones apart. There was on old rotery with the brass bell ringers in there that me and my wife and kids played with...