Often I’m asked what should a seller do with with the damaged portion of their liquidation merchandise, meaning, how should one attempt to recover revenue from inventory that might seam to be unsellable? Those that purchase pallets of wholesale liquidation merchandise never complain about the profits they experience selling items that are in like new condition, but when it comes to being creative with the damaged items inevitably found within customer returned loads most people are at a loss for revenue recovery.
Depending on what type of merchandise your buying there are several ways to deal with what you might consider unsellable merchandise. Let’s focus in terms of salvage electronics with today’s post.
Buying pallets of name brand customer returned electronics seems to be the very area where a salvage buyer can become inundated with broken items. Just about everyone who buys returned electronics will tell you that each load is different in terms of item working ratios. How do you make allowances for electronics that need repair if you’re not tech savvy?
Short answer…sell broken electronics to those that know how to perform necessary repairs, duh! Yes, like an auto junk yard sells parts for car repair, you can resell broken electronics as “parts,” or for item repair. Really? – you bet, in fact, let’s take a look at the following eBay seller:
You can see that the last few auctions show closing bids for damaged cameras…yes, damaged! While the closing final prices are not astronomical, I know customer returned cameras can be purchased in bulk for about $5-$7 per unit. Not bad, huh?
Of those $5-$7 digital cameras I would venture to guess that 55-60% are purchased in working condition. A true win-win situation for the salvage electronics buyer. I would venture to say that there are eBay buyers out there that are ready and willing to purchase broken cameras, TV’s, iPods, etc. Even so, I would not recommend purchasing salvage electronics if you are new to buying customer returns altogether. Get your feet wet with general merchandise or clothing first…working with customer returns is not for the faint of heart!
