If you do not sell them, you haven't made any money, if you do, you have money to purchase more, and turn a profit. Profit is about what the retail industry calls "turns" the faster you turn your inventory, the more effective a buyer you become, the stronger your contacts with sellers becomes, the more material you move, the more material you can buy, you make other people money, you make money, the people you sell to make money and everyone is happy.
Why piss off your buyer trying to hold on for the majority of the profit, and why piss off potential customers who want to sell to you but have to wait around for you to transact some other deal.
In another post I mentioned that I sold pins for 69.99 on a fairly consistent basis on
ebay just because I have so much other material to run sometimes. I could sit on it and make $99+ on each 1lb bag of pins, but I make a lot more money selling pins at 69.99 and being able to purchase more scrap, than I would selling them at $99+. I could also refine them, but then they would have to lay around, not making me any money, until I freed up time enough to process them. Not only that, but because I purchase and sell so much, the people who supply me with pins or other scrap, call me before anyone else because I'm a for sure thing. I buy, and consistently. Turns, always turns.
I live close to Silicon Valley, and have been making contacts with the asset & recovery departments of several companies who are in the computer industry. I get the first call on most scrap because I am able to buy it immediately. I can buy immediately because I already sold or processed everything they sold me last month because I sold it at a profit, but still at a very good price so my customer can also make a profit.
So you paid $5 each tower for a grand total of $50. If you sold them for $500, you are making a 1000% profit. Why in the world wouldn't you sell?
Lets do some math to make this point even more interesting.
You buy 10 computers for $50 and sell for $500, you are not able to buy 50 computers. If we take the average price for each computer you sold at $50, you then multiply 50 computers x $50 dollars each, that's $2,500. You were able to sell them to the same guy you say low balled you, and he bought them because he made money off the last batch you sold him. He was able to sell them less, and sell them fast and is ready with his own funds in hand to happily purchase more from you. So week 2 you have 2,500 in your pocket and purchase 500 computers. This is just week two mind you. So you then take those 500 computers and sell them to the same nice guy that is willing to pay you $50 per computer all day long because he's still making money. So now you walk away with $25,000 in your pocket.
Are you getting the picture here?
Now, you can sit on your computers and wait around for some smuck that is stupid enough to buy them at $1000 each, but he will never be back. At $1000 each you didn't leave him any room for profit, so nobody bought the computers from him because he was more expensive. He cannot buy any computers from you when you have them again because he hasn't sold the ones you sold him yet. You then find yourself sitting on another lot of computers you are not able to sell. So now you call up that same guy you thought was low balling you, and beg him to give you $40 each for the computers, now he refuses, tells you he found someone else who sells them to him for $30, and for him to buy yours, you have to sell them for $25 each.
It's really simple, you are not going to make any money if you are not selling any goods.
Scott
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