Looking for a refiner to sell to directly for E-waste

Originally Posted by happyisthealero

Looking for a refiner to sell to directly for E-waste, would I make more than I would if I dealt with one rather than deal with anyone locally?

That would depend on many different factors.

How do you sell locally? Are you selling to a scrap yard, or are you selling to a processor or refinery? Each one has their advantages or disadvantages. Before you can compare selling directly to an individual refiner, you have to be able to answer these questions for yourself. And if you are selling to a processor/refiner, are you even getting a fair price, are you representing your material properly?

What would be the cost to you to sell to an individual refiner, shipping, insurance? It might be better for you to sell to an individual refiner, it might be better to have them toll refine for you, or in some cases it might be better to sell on ebay. I was recently asked by a couple of people if I would refine some material for them. I told both people honestly, that the type of material they wanted to refine would bring more selling on ebay. In some cases, this is the better option.

If you have someone toll refine, that means they are refining for a percentage of the yield. So how much material becomes a valuable point. For example, if wanted someone to toll refine fingers for me that generally yield between 1-2 grams, and I only have a lb but I'm asking for them to refine for 10% of the total yield, even at 2 grams for the lb, we are only talking about $8-9 dollars to the refiner. No refiner that is in this as a business is going to toll refine for that amount, it wouldn't cover even the labor involved let alone the cost of the chemicals, melt costs, electricity, etc. But if you have 100 lbs of material it becomes a totally different proposition and that same 10% becomes more reasonable. Larger quantities will get you a better toll refining fee.

Same goes for selling material. I had someone offer me 5 lbs of fingers at a price that I would only make about $15 on the yield side. I understand they were looking for as much money as they were able to get, but there is no way it would be worth my time, effort and energy to process. I would be loosing money. If it were 50lbs, it might have worked. That same lot of 5 lbs though might sell on ebay for the amount he was asking. On ebay, there are hobby refiners who purchase material just to process, because it's their hobby. Many times it costs a hobby refiner more to process the material than what it's worth, but as a hobby people spend money on their hobby, and don't usually do it to make money.

These are just a few things to think about and mull over. If you have any questions, or anyone else for that matter, and want to post them on this thread, I'll try to answer as best I can. I think this thread has value to people looking to get the most value out of their material. These are the types of posts I get myself into trouble with, with other refiners. I do this because I believe if people who are selling their material understand things from my point of view, as a refiner, that they hopefully will want to deal with them more fairly, and share whatever profit there is to make accordingly.

Scott

Originally Posted by happyisthealero

Looking for a refiner to sell to directly for E-waste, would I make more than I would if I dealt with one rather than deal with anyone locally?

You need to think big quantity to get this going. Not the typical shipment that you send to one of our buyers here.

You might want to wait before selling stuff that can be refined. I'll be giving a review for a member who is starting a refining business in a few days. I do not like these kinds of posts, either, but he's getting set up and refining a test batch now. I expect he'll be starting a Buyer's thread within a few days.

No, it's not me.

From my experience the cleaner the material the better the payout. weight is also important as stated by a few others.

@Happy.. You're right... sometimes its best to get a bigger load in to make it profitable..

I buy scrap / computers / wires / lead batteires / lithium and etc etc etc...

now when I buy.. I look at how much work its going to take to break it down.. my rent, basically bills.

and from there, I look at my scrapping habits, Am I removing all the Alum heatsinks from the boards, metal.. backplane plastic

its really important Why.. Lets say a refiner charges You lets say just for gimmick guys.. 2 bucks a pound.

If you leave all them alum heatsinks and matal on that board along with plastic.. You're paying someone else 2.00 per pound. now

think about it, are You going to get 2 bucks per pound if lets say you did remove them and took them to a scrap yard. .. the answer

IS NO>.. you will get a measily maybe .40 cents lets say.

so be sure you remove all of that.. non essential items..

now once you've done that and you weghed your box of goodies.. its time to figure things out.

what is it going to cost Me to ship it to the refiner, how much did I spend to buy that scrap,

how much is it going to cost me to get it refine.. remember they charge by the pound plus some charge a 1% of the goods afterwards.

These are the things you've to think of. so figure your cost.. write it down.. and see if you're going to break even if you're not worth

it.. If you see a good gain from doing this.. then do it, now again its goes by the value of precious metal, its really hard to determine

what you'll get out of that box of goodies.. They are all different.. You may gain anywhere from 15 to 25 to 30 percent over what

you would get from a buyer. but remember deduct your cost and see where you're at,.

Hope this makes sense.

Good Luck.

did you turn that opportunity to a fellow member?

One of my best friends fathers, who was self made, one of the most honest people/business owners I have ever known. He used to say all the time "You can't go broke making a profit".

In saying that, you would of course account for everything from the cost of transportation, to what you pay yourself as an hourly wage. Anything after that is profit.

In the grocery business, or retail for that matter, there are several ways to calculate or crunch numbers to ensure you are profitable, labor percentage, profit margin, even how many sq ft to devote to any one product so that you generate a specific profit per sq ft, per month. One of the most important that enters into the long list of ways to figure your business is called "turns". it refers to the amount of time it takes from the point you purchase something, to sell something and "turn" a profit.

If you buy something, and can "turn" it in a day, you now have more money to buy more scrap and again "turn" it for a profit.

I used to consult for people who were attempting to operate a retail store. One of the most frustrating personalities I would come across was the business owner that had in mind a specific amount of money they wanted to make on any particular product. They would put it on the shelf, and ask a price people were not willing to pay. No matter how long it stayed on the shelf, they were not willing to sell it for less than that price. But what they didn't realize, nor understand, was the longer they sat on that one item, the more expensive that one item became.

My advice for anyone who can make a profit on anything, unless you have business backed up the door and around the corner, is to take it. Even after all your costs, and what you pay for your labor, you only make a few dollars, that is still more than you had before you started. To think you can build your business on the juicy big lots is a fallacy, a strong business model is built on bread and butter. If you build your business on a few big deals a month, you are going to fail. If you build your business on a 100 small deals a month you will prosper. You can loose 10 out of 100 small accounts, but if you loose 10 out of 10 of the larger juicy deals, you are out of business.

Scott

Agree with Noble on his business advice. I know I like to have a couple of larger than adverage accounts but the small ones fill in the holes between them. I can't do what I do without the small ones. Mike.