Disposing of a LOT of parts quickly

[Gordon S. Hlavenka]

To the conspiracy theorists among you, this post may look like an
attempt to slip in a commercial message. Heaven forfend! It's a
genuine request for information. (Although if you ARE interested in
buying...


I have a large quantity of electronic parts: discretes, ICs, connectors,
cabling, tools, etc. etc. left over from a business. This was a retail
store specializing in electronic stuff; kinda what we all wish RS would
be. Anyway, I had to close the store and have had the leftover
inventory squirreled about the house for several years.

Now we're moving to a smaller house and this stuff simply has to be gone.

Some time ago, I listed a few lots on eBay. A couple of things brought
decent money but most of the bids were ridiculously low. For example, a
60-drawer cabinet filled with IC chips drew a single bid of less than
the price of the empty cabinet.

At this point my main goal is to get this stuff into the hands of
somebody who will appreciate it. But I'd still like to get a fair price
for it if possible. (Plan B is to donate it to the local community
college) So, does anybody have suggestions on how to broker this mess?
It's all boxed up, but not really boxed in a UPS-able way, plus it
would fill a UPS truck or two. So the best thing would be, I guess, to
find somebody local (Chicago) who can come over and load it up.

Any ideas?

 

[Mike Berger]

If you listed it on Ebay, you probably got a fair price for it.
You can take your time to inventory, store, and list everything
to get the highest possible price, but you already said you're in
a hurry.

 

[[email protected]]

[Ebay] A couple of things brought

decent money but most of the bids were
ridiculously low.

Some items with collector's cachet or high demand will sell well, but
random junk usually won't.

Too bad you sold the "sellable" stuff early... a good trick is to mix
in a lot of the less desirable stuff with the good stuff and insist
that it all go together. (Of course you don't always know what's
"sellable" in advance!)

In general the bids will be puny compared to the effort to list it well
and package it up and ship it.

Any ideas?

Posting on usenet, links to pictures, very definite terms ("must show
up with a panel truck and take it all" is what I did). Craigslist
works well in some urban areas.

Do not impose terms about the future disposition of the stuff... you
couldn't use it, the taker probably won't be able to use it all, if
they want to E-bay all/some of it then let them make the effort.

Desiring it go to a community college is a noble goal but realistically
most of them are disposing wholesale of their
equipment/instruments/components too (if they didn't do it a decade or
two ago.)

I got rid of about 12 tons of stuff over the past year using this
method, mostly to good homes, with no cost to me other than helping
them drag it out of my basement and into their truck. In most cases
it's just sitting in the recipient's attic/basement too, but in a
couple of cases they're making good use of it.

Tim.