Who Do The Big Fish Sell Their Stuff To?

Since there is no one else within 160 miles of me who buys E-Scrap, I was looking into the feasibility of buying scrap, and selling it on in bulk.

My issue has been finding anyone who buys in bulk, that can make it profitable ... the best I have found is listing my stuff on Alibaba and hoping to compete with the Chinese sellers. E-Waste refiners in the US seem to be extremely difficult to find, and all of the small buyers do not pay enough to cover bulk shipping costs ( average of $3.75 per mile + fees + $65 per gaylord ).

So my question is: were are all the American bulk buyers ?!

There is a big market out there of buyers & sellers of e-scrap. Things you should consider when choosing;

Payment Terms: How do they pay, whats the schedule (i.e. time until you get paid), reliability of the buyer to actually pay you and pay you what is previously agreed on.

Logistics: If you are truly putting together a truckload of material you should be buying the product at a price in consideration of your shipping costs. Whoever your getting this stuff from would have the same costs if not more because they don't have the same volume you do. Either way, there's a freight broker in the buyer's/sellers area as well a high volume e-scrap buyer who I can personally vouch for that can pre-pay shipping and charges you from the total payout but is certainly a highly competitive rate.

Market Segment: What position are you in the market or are hoping to fill; do you want to take material all the way to a refinery? There's a great deal of risk in market fluctuations and refineries trying to misrepresent the value of your material during your wait of 60-90 days for them to process it...Higher margins, higher risk. Is there really no middleman in your area to aggregate E-scrap? Sounds like money to be made and in today's market one in the hand is worth two in the bush. In that, it can better to buy and sell E-scrap at a comfortable margin than speculate as I've seen many lose everything to speculating on E-scrap. Scrapyards make there money because they are providing a service; they are buying out your risk of the value changing in the material and you receive a cash payout but you aren't going to make what the yard makes because they also produce truckloads of material.

These factors will always be changing and so can your business model. It's nice to ask advice and get input from your peers but at the end of the day there are a lot of things we don't know about your circumstances but it sounds like you can enjoy a nice monopoly in your area. In today's market, cash is king and everyone's initial asking price is rarely there walk-away number; you may be able to get the material in your area cheap and sell it outright.

Originally Posted by RLS0812

Why do folks find it surprising that there are no E-Scrap buyers out here in mid-western Pennsylvania? I live in the middle of the proverbial sticks !

I actually do more than rip stuff apart for YouTube ... electronics scraping is my part-time job when I am not working ...
The problem now, as when I started, is the very high cost of shipping. The small buyers can not pay enough to cover shipping costs.
I have quotes from 14 different trucking companies ... They range from $3.40 to $4.10 per mile ( + transport fees ) ... which is a far cheaper than the $1.20/lb +- I am currently being charged by UPS, FedEx, and USPS . [*1] [*2]
I currently have roughly 800 lbs of hard drives sitting around. Small buyers don't pay enough to cover shipping + the gaylord [*3], and I can not find a trustworthy refiner (yet) that I can ship them to ...
I can not ship low & mid grade boards, again because of price vs shipping.
My break even point is $0.59/lb shipping bulk and $1.60/lb in small quantities [*4].


*1 - my rate would go down to roughly $2.80 a mile if I would ship once a month
*2 - shipping LTL is slightly cheaper, but not by much
*3 - buying in bulk, a gaylord and plastic pallet cost $65 ( including shipping costs )
*4 - small quantity = 1 ton or less

We have a freight shipper here on the forum that has very good rates. I have used his services several times and my shipping cost averages 9-10 cents/lb.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...tops-lcds.html

If you are shipping only hard drives, you are not going to make any money. You need to add some higher value material to make it worth it. When I send in my hard drives I fill the rest of the gaylord with telecom boards or RAM to offset the cost.

If you are paying 65.00 for a gaylord and a pallet you are being taken advantage of. Any scrap yard around here will sell a gaylord and pallet for 5-10 bucks each. I have a good relationship with my yard and the guy gives them to me for free if I only need a couple.

You have received some very good advice from 2 top contributors so far.

One told you to check out the buyers and sellers section here on the SMF and the other even mentioned the name of one of the top buyers and you're asking for links and numbers?

You are getting some real good advice right here. The last pallet I shipped was 718 lbs ( I am averaging a pallet a month right now ) mixed value , low and high value goods. net $801.00 after shipping from CT to Ohio.
Shipping was about $90.00 +- . If heed this good advice above you will be in good company. These guys have tons of experience... but you do some footwork yourself to learn what works best for you. we are all different
in how we handle out biz. Sounds like you have the product-thats the hard part for some of us,now you just need to figure best way to move it. Good luck

There are buyers in PA. Might not fit your idea of "Big Fish" tho.

There are also several nearby in NY, NYC, and other various areas around PA.

We have a shipper/broker/transporter right here on the forums, who has been mentioned in this thread and many others. Those rates you got quoted, make me laugh, as I can get better an I'm on a sandbar two miles out in the Atlantic. I'm also able to ship an make a decent profit. Not sure how someone in PA, not on a sandbar, or out in the Atlantic can't make shipping rates work. Perhaps you need to make your loads smaller?

I know Ewasted pays shipping upfront, as does Mudlucky I believe he just recently even updated his thread stating such. Perhaps expand out of your..comfort zone, an look to your neighbor states, or ones not to far off. PA to OH ain't exactly California to DC. Back to shipping, several buyers will prepay shipping. IF your looking for totally free shipping, well..when you find it let the rest of us know.

I do this full time, in a tourist dependent area 2 miles out in the Atlantic. If I can do it, I'm sure you main landers can figure it out. I'm not trying to be a jerk here but..all this info is able to found right here on the forums an no need to dig that far back in the archives. I'm also not sure why WE need to provide you with links an numbers, when the info is readily available thought everyone's favorite personal researcher...Google.

Sometimes you gotta deal with a bunch of no's to get a yes...this also applies to calling for rates. Keep calling till you find the ones that work for you. Try smaller companies, try the big ones. If you settle for the first few, you'll never find the lower end rates. I can think of several ways you could get transported via LTL loads an it not cost you 4 bucks a mile.

Remember most of us started out doing this as a hobby or part time an now do this full time. We're not just typing/talking to hear ourselves do so. It works for us, so it CAN work for you, nobody said it'd be easy tho.

Sirscrapalot - I need a drink. - Me.

The last load that I shipped from the middle of Kansas to the state of Ohio ended up costing me .07 cents per pound for 6500 pounds. I did fine on hard drives, power supplies and monitors. You will find, as has been mentioned previously, that the buyers on this forum can help more than one might realize.

Mother to daughter advice:

Cook a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
But teach a man to fish and you get rid of him for the whole weekend.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

The only reason your husband likes to go fishing so much is that it's the only time he hears someone tell him, "Wow, that's a big one!"

I can't believe none of you guys are hopping on a plane and offering your services to him personally for free in hopes that he can become your competition one day.

Honestly, this one sounds like a flounder... Anyone who uses Alibaba for anything serious, makes me wonder.

Which, in hopes this gets hijacked... are we coddling the slow people of the world too much?