Ewaste Buying from Stores

Was just cruising through the Scrap Room with my new membership and I decided it is time to start talking to my local computer repair stores. It got me thinking about how does everyone buy their ewaste. Do you just guesstimate how much you think, or do you pay by weight? I realize it is a lot easier to buy whole computers, but if they have parts I am not sure how to go about it.

its really up to you, your overhead and greed portion lol time and so forth dictate how much to buy for and each item varies from whole desktops to the tiniest of screws. so start by figuring in your costs and what your able to sell stuff for and average it out to get a good buy point on those single and whole items

I'm not so concerned with the actual dollar amount, but as to how to get to that dollar amount. Like do you say it takes 12 finger cards to a pound per say. And then say to your self the guy has roughly 300 finger cards, so 300/12 is 25 pounds at 3.75 a pound is $95.75. So I offer the guy 35 bucks or something like that. Its not like I want to bring a scale in and weight everything hes got! LOL. But this is all theoretical because I haven't even talked to the guy yet.

Maybe that is what I will do. Get down start crunching numbers and pull an average number of items per pound. Then figure out what each piece is worth. That why I can put it all down and have a neat little price list I can flash around.

That's just how I did it. When I had price lists in hand, it made it much easier to talk to the store owners. The only trouble is varying weights for things like finger cards. Some places I go have had me switch to by the pound and I bring my own scales. It's not too bad really when they have everything in Rubbermaid totes. I just bought 124 lbs of motherboards that way today.

Other places like a by the piece pricing, so I have it both ways. Desktop hard drives are easy to count and they like to see the 50 cents each stack up. (fortunately, my 50 cents per pound works out almost exactly the same).

Then there are the best places for me. They start off selling what they can, then get overworked, need space, tired of sorting, and just call me to get rid of this junk today. Nice. I do haul off everything they want to get rid of, not just the best stuff. That keeps them happy.

Beware of the arrogance of some of these guys. I stopped in to my first repair shop today. I introduced myself and told the guy I was just getting started. His response was that he just couldn't give me the stuff and asked what I was willing to pay. I told him I would pay $1 to $3 per tower depending on its age.

He chuffed at me. Then I had to listen to him spew all his knowledge and experience for the next 10 minutes.

He said he was refining all his scrap for about 5 years until the prices of metals went down. He said he had a pole barn with about 30 ton of eWaste and had worked through about half of it. I asked if he would be more interested in selling by weight. He said maybe, but you'd have to take all 15 ton. Then asked me if I had a floor scale, if I was certified, yada yada yada. Again basically just imparting his vast knowledge and telling me how I will never make a go of it.

WTF is wrong with some of these people? He knows he is sitting on a mountain of, in his mind, unprofitable electronics. Yet he has no desire to pass it along at a fair price.

I think part of the problem is that I'm a woman, and I was able to go toe to toe with him on facts. Sheessh!

Well went into the store today. I talked with the guy told him that I was interested in old, obsolete or his broken parts. He said he had a guy that comes around every few weeks. He said lately he has not been getting as much because the prices took a hit. I chatted for a while, then handed him a business card and told him thanks for his time and that I would see him around. I'm going to come back in the next week or so with a price list. I think I will put per piece and per pound on there for now. He told me that his guy recently went from per piece to per pound. I was kind of nervous my first time going in asking someone for scrap. I was kind of afraid that I was going to be pushed to the side because of my age.

I started buying by the piece recently. It's easier for people to understand the price list that way.

Don't let the tech guys get you down. Having a good head for logic based things is one kind of intelligence. Social skills are a completely different kind of intelligence. It's not all that often that a person you run across is well versed in both.

< ----- banging his head against the wall.

Tried to talk with an old friend that's a really good automotive mechanic this afternoon. There's some work that i need done that's out of my range as a shade tree mechanic. Completely hopeless .... i might as well have been talking to the wall for all the good it would have done.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

I started buying by the piece recently. It's easier for people to understand the price list that way

That's what I was thinking, but I feel like it would be a hit or miss with things like mobos and finger cards where the size can alter the price very quickly.

Originally Posted by JnJunk

That's what I was thinking, but I feel like it would be a hit or miss with things like mobos and finger cards where the size can alter the price very quickly.

I averaged.

For example: I took 10 lbs of random mixed finger cards and figured the average number of cards per pound.

Same thing with the mobos. It was an average mix of large & small socket.

You don't have to get too fussy with it. Just figure in a reasonable margin of profit for yourself and then check it from time to time to make sure it's still running true. I'm just a (very)small timer so it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work out. No big loss.

The nice thing was that it made it a lot faster & easier to do the pay outs. It eats up a lot of time when you have to weigh & itemize everything.

The fewer the line items you have .... the easier it is for the buyer and the seller.

Is there anyway you could shoot me a couple numbers for stuff like ram cd drives and hard drives. I just cleared out my stock and I am kind of guesstimating on the prices for them

Determining the pay price is really something you should do for yourself. This is just a work in progress for me and i could be wrong on the numbers. I don't want to screw you up too.

If you comb through the archives there's a thread somewhere on the average # of ram sticks per pound. If you look through the buyer's threads there's info on what they're paying for HDD's.

There's probably also a thread on cd drives and what they yield as scrap. From what i've read you would do better if you were set up to test & re-sell on ebay.

Yea I know what you mean. And of course resell is usually going to mean more profit. I am trying to just get some numbers down to get me in the door. Meanwhile I'm trying to work a deal with my local yard to buy their computers. But of course the Managers boss is "On Vacation". We will see about that.