This is just my opinion, about what's worked for me in the time I've been hauling scrap. It may or may not work for anyone else, but hopefully it'll help someone out.
If it doesn't work for you, just ignore it and move on, carry about your regular business. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, as that is certainly not my intention.
To me, it seems that some people here on the forums have this mentality that they have to "win" every single time. That means that they need to get every last penny out of every single piece of copper or aluminum or whatever they have, every single time they sell. I've seen people post to just "walk away" or go to another yard, over literally pennies on a sale. Advice to make the yard "pull out the XRF gun" on every piece of metal in question. The same is true when it comes to buying, can't overpay by a buck on this batch of aluminum, or that batch of insulated wire, never mind it's the 20th batch you've purchased from this company, and you made your money the last 19 times.
In my own experience, this isn't the most profitable approach in the long term, or overall. I mean definitely, I can understand, nobody likes getting screwed over, and you're certainly not going to make money if you let people walk over you. All I'm saying is there has to be some give and take. If you deal regularly with a yard, and they come to know you as a customer who A) knows their stuff, and B) doesn't get all pissy over 6 lbs of whatever going in the wrong pile, they're going to be more accommodating with you in the long run. On the flip side, if they come to know you as a customer who comes in with 79 lbs. of non-ferrous, and insists on scaling separately all 7 grades of aluminum and 4 grades of copper that you have that trip, they're going to low-ball your prices, every time. Or at least, you're probably never going to move off of the "posted" price list. Conversely, if your yard comes to know you as the guy who throws his #1 copper in with his #2 pile if he only has a few lbs of #1 and 200 lbs. of #2, it may get you an extra few cents on that #2 price, or on your irony alum that you also have, or whatever.
I can give an example of this. At the yard where I haul my steel, there's another scrapper bringing stuff there. He's a very nice guy, very personable, hard worker, etc. He's actually one of only 2 other scrappers I know in town who I would consider working with, or actually call a friend. He's also a complete pain in the backside when it comes to scrap. He's like I described above; he will literally drive on the scale, unload his tin. Drive on the scale again, then unload his cast. Drive on the scale again, unload his irony alum. Then his #1 prepared. And so on, and so on. Same with his non-ferrous on the small scale, 10 separate piles/pails whatever. I asked him why he doesn't sort his loads and bring in full loads of each separate, but that's too much work for him. He insisted on speaking with the yard manager, and getting his steel price from him, "because I bring in so much". As well, instead of waiting to be paid out after every load like everyone else does, he just collects his scale ticket and then gets paid out once a week. This is a hassle for the yard, as now they have to track him like an accounts customer, which is done in the bookkeeping office, but then pay him out in cash once a week instead of a cheque, which is done from the scale office. Lots of running back and forth to accomplish this.
Now, the yard here has a posted scale price that is basically meant to cover the guy who hauls in a load or 2 a year of stuff he cleans out of work, or whatever. The posted scale price is currently $96.00. So anyone who hauls in on any kind of a regular basis gets a fair bit above this price. Currently, most scrappers are getting in the $140-160 range. Plus, at the end of the month, if you've hauled in more than 50 000 lbs, you get an extra $20 "bonus" per ton. So if you're moving a lot of scrap, you can pretty much count on $180. It sure sucks compared to some of other prices I've seen posted, but it is what it is. Around here, that's it.
So the last little while, my brother and I have been speaking more with this scrapper. We've been talking about possibly working together on larger jobs, or perhaps renting
yard space together, whatever. Because of talking about this stuff, we've compared our prices from the yard. This guy is getting a LOT lower than we are getting paid. On the same material. Plus, because he's treated as an account customer and not a cash customer, he gets no monthly bonus. Double whammy. I know one of the ladies who works the scale office, known her for years before she even started working at this place. I asked her about it, and her answer was "because he's such a pain in the ass, and because he insisted on talking to the manager and getting his price from him. Well, now the manager has to raise his price, and he hasn't gotten around to doing that yet". I don't feel that's right, and it's a crappy way to treat a customer, but it's self-inflicted. He now knows he's not being treated really well, but we left it out to him to figure out why.
So just go with the flow, don't sweat the small stuff. Sometimes it might just be easier to tell the guy at the yard "Ya know, I know I've got some extruded here, and some sheet, and some clean cast, but there's not enough of each, let's just call it all clean cast". It might work out in your favour in the long run, just by making his job less stressful and easier. Maybe next time you'll get "dirty cast alum" at $0.24 on that alum block that still has the crank in it, instead of "irony alum" at $0.13 maybe not though. I know it has for me in the past. Our yard is pretty flexible on what they'll call "dirty alum" for us, because of this.
Same goes with buying material. If you're a bit flexible, sellers will come to you and be a bit more willing to take a few cents less if a load isn't perfect, or because the last load was mixed with other product, or whatever example you want.
I just think that if you come to be known as too rigid or demanding a person, as either a buyer or a seller, it will cost you in the long term. But if you become known as a person who knows their stuff/scrap, but isn't completely anal about it, people will look forward to doing business with you.
Sorry for the wall of text, I hope it helps someone.
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