600# of copper

what are your local prices? how many yards withing 50 miles?

With that much weight higher prices can be negotiated. If you had 400# of Gold and say, 200# of silver to sell, what would you do with it ? The answer. The same thing you would do with 600# of anything.

Call all the yards within 30-50 miles, and get pricing. DO NOT mention how much you have.

Call back later and ask for the non ferrous buyer, this is when you talk about weight, and are already armed with their normal pricing, and that of their competitors. Be sure to tell that you are the owner of "xyz demolition" and are looking to make scrap a larger part of your business model.

compare pricing, fuel costs, etc on your favorite quotes. Call back your chosen buyer. Set an appointment and deal with them directly.

If you are an experienced ebay seller then you can do the research and figure out if it works for you. If you are not an experienced ebay seller then this will likely not be a quick turn around and likely you will not make enough more profit to make it worth while.

Often in business you will loose money. Recoup what you can from the deal and move on. The sooner you move on to the next opportunity the sooner you will make a profit.

Learn to add in the extra percentage to cover the unexpected things that come up.

Some customers want you to do the job as cheaply as possible even if you loose money. The type of customer you should want to business with wants a long term relationship. In order to make it a long term relationship you have to remain in business.

You are selling a service, think of other types of service businesses and what they charge. They charge as much for their knowledge than of the actions they perform. Good luck, Mike

All of the above.

Originally Posted by nutpie

I am not an ebay seller. I'm doing ok just sticking to my area. But I do get things that would not sell around here. So I will be on ebay eventually. And I did bid low in part to get the next job from the same person. He is trying to retire from his job and just flip houses. So I am hoping he will make money on this house and move to the next, and hire me again. I mentioned in the first post I am saving, don't have, that much weight. But I will call around. I know I can't work out a price today and sell a month later for said price. I'm super busy and sometimes my mind is in other places.

A small piece of advice on your demo business. Never price your self low in order to get in the door thinking you will pick it up on the next job. If the contractor hires you based on a low price, as soon as your prices go up, they will find another demo guy. People who buy based on price alone are not loyal to who they buy from. They are only loyal to their money.

600 of copper may have some room to talk.

600 of aluminum is not so special.

The big thing here with having a nice weighty amount of Copper or Brass etc is contracts.

If a scrapmetal buyer has a contract to supply X amount of metal by a certain date, and they don't have enough to fulfull the contract, they will call up anybody, even their competition, to see how much metal they can buy from them, at a premium.

They might pay 10% more, they might pay 30% more, to get the last little amount they might even pay more than that!
But they have to know how much YOU have. And you have to know what THEY will pay. (And at that point you have to have the metal in a secure place..)

So If you have a 2-3 even 4 hundred kgs. Call them, tell them you have it and won't be selling until (whatever date) and if they want to pay a bit more than the book price. They might.
Even if they don't need it, some other scrapbuyer they know of might. That gets them a favour even if it didn't get them money.

Around here, the smaller yards do this a lot, even yards that are 500miles away call up to see whats around just so they can get enough for a contract.

And if they are getting paid for their metal on the 20th of the month, and moneys tight, and you can drop it off on the 18th and wait till the 22nd to get paid.
Well golly, they just made a bunch of profit for no capital expense and you just got paid a extra X% on book price and that was 3 weeks before you intended selling it anyway. Talk about elbow room.

#1 Copper? The guys at our yards start salivating when they hear those words. I don't know what it is about it but its like theres little $$ signs in their eyes and drooling at the same time.

Years ago, I sold a old welder to a scrapmetal buyer, and a bunch of other metal too. I was clearing out a workshop I had and fitting everything into a shipping container. My helper/friend suggested scrapping stuff I didn't need for a bit of ca$h and to save room.

I had just brought a Invertor welder so the 3 phase motor/generator welder was histroy. Metal off cuts, shelving, sinks, radiators etc, 20 gallon drum full of Brass swarf. But, the welding cables......
Big thick ropey soft rubber surrounded #1 Bright Copper. Almost too much to carry.
He went weak at the knees as he told me he was "Giving me domestic Copper prices for coated #1 Copper" and "Where did you get all this stuff??".

But the bit I remember the most was him shoving a bunch of $100 and $50 notes into my hands......
And then coming back with more....

That was my 'Scrap (its no longer scrap boy, its worth $$$) metal moment.'

600 pounds of copper is a nice starting point to see the yard manager, he's not going to throw you a party, making you the mostus, bestus scrapper ever! More like like: I got 600 pounds of #1 copper maybe a little more than that, plus a couple hundred pounds of yellow brass, and a little more than that of #2 insulated. How's is everything going with everyone here, business looks like we are starting in the right direction finally, what's the best prices you can offer me, in my largest load this summer. Did I tell you, your the bestus yard in town I always like working with you guys!

That 600 pounds is not going to make or break any yard with a decent and profitable amount of business. You put together a respectful amount of the best metals a yard wants to broker to his buyers. That should get you a conversation with a yard manager that you want to do even more business with, he will understand that, he wants the same thing. Sell yourself and be honest in doing that, it's what a business relationship is all about.

Right now there isn't a lot of wiggle room to be throwing around ''poundage'' numbers. It's very simple, if WE only get, lets say, $2.40 a lb for #1 CU, we sure aren't going to pay you $2.35 a lb no matter how much you have. The difference is eaten up by costs like trucking, maybe a middle man. Todays market doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for negotiating.