Fixing junk for resale?

[HelloRog55]

Hi Guys and Gals,

Just wondered if any of you search Ebay or CraigsList or elsewhere for repairable computers for resale? What do you look for and what is what you consider "beyond repair" or to much trouble for the time involved?

[DanF]

Thought of it but it's not worth doing. Most computers are way too broken and with the delivery expenses they are not worth getting.

Lets take laptops for instance. Sellers selling these are usually computer stores like us and if was wroth fixing, then they would have done it instead. These are usually missing a lot of stuff, including the hard disk, RAM, optical disk, battery, and AC adapter.

[Paul Rodgers]

You are better off offering a recycling/reclamation service and parting out the good and sending the bad to get properly recycled. Just make sure you can find a free or inexpensive way to properly dispose of the bad components.

[Rosco]

Originally Posted by Paul Rodgers

You are better off offering a recycling/reclamation service and parting out the good and sending the bad to get properly recycled. Just make sure you can find a free or inexpensive way to properly dispose of the bad components.

this is the only way to to it... to costly otherwise. ebay has ton of good deals if you like laptops with no hard drive, ram, or ac adapter.

[MSgherzi]

I've barely managed to sell off the many machines from customers who did not need them anymore. The fact that I have managed to sell off about 5-6 of them makes me feel fortunate. Just not worth it anymore.

Or you could buy some or use your current machines for any of these scenarios...

http://www.technibble.com/5-great-wa...for-customers/

[compnet]

I agree with the above. We resell abandoned computers, but even some we get for free we just salvage/ewaste. You can get a new laptop with warranty for 350. Pretty much every used laptop the battery sucks on top of whatever else is wrong for them to sell it so cheap.

If someone walks in off the street we tell them we can do a full diag and make an offer tonorrow. But we won't go looking for computers to resell.

[gikstar]

I search Craigslist for buys on decent working equipment where in many cases someone has upgraded and is just trying to get some money out of it. I purchase nothing less than a Core2Dual 2.2Ghz system and I keep my eye out for good deals on Dell Ultrasharp monitors.

We get a few clients that bring their old computer to us that it's just not worth updating that system with adding more old ram and replacing the a bad hard drive. So in cases where the client can't afford a new computer, we sell them a good used system and send them away happy (we do warranty it of course). We believe in providing good service to our clients no matter their financial situation. We can actually make more money from selling a good used system than we can selling new equipment.

Some of the systems that the clients leave us we refurbish them and turn them into IPCOPS for our business clients, but now that we use PF Sense, we install that with an good ide hard drive and several NICs, and the program doesn't require much ram...

The most profitable item that I found searching Craigslist was a working 42U air conditioned server rack for $100 and we turned around and sold it to a business client who was elated to pay $2500 for it.
Yes Dorthy, there is money to be made on Craigslist buys...

Laptops, yes you can pick up a great deal once in a while, especially if you plan on using it yourself. A lot of the time you find that there's not any money in it after fixing it. When that happens, I pass them along to family members. Since I often check Craigslist umpteen times a day, I once found someone selling a Dell XPS for $50, qualified the seller over the phone as they had just gotten a new laptop and were having problems with the XPS. I asked for the service tag and found that it still had 143 days left on the warranty. Bought it and ended up having Dell send out a service tech with a new motherboard and had him sit down at one of our tech benches and install it. Dell had asked me if I wanted to install the motherboard... Ha Ha, nice try. Nice 15" core2dual laptop.

I love purchasing items from Craigslist that businesses list that no longer want or need the items. Often times I will be offered items for free, "can you use this" they ask. Was given 100+ 3' Cat6 cables (they moved all their servers to another location).
Bought another server rack which was too large for the office where the company moved to which included a 2200APC UPS unit, all for $50...and had me take a stool that they no longer needed, now that UPS is sitting in our server rack and the stool is at our workbench.

Searching Craigslist is time consuming and there are a lot of people looking for good deals. The good deals go very fast so you have to be able to find it and respond quickly (I think there's a app for that). When I email the seller I let them know that I have cash in hand and I can leave immediately to purchase the item.
So, for me, well I have more time on my hands than most of you to do this sort of stuff since I'm retired and I enjoy finding good computer deals, fixing and building computers, and helping my son with his IT company.

By the way, I don't quibble about the price that the seller has listed. Either I'm willing to pay what their asking or I'm not. Sometimes when I'm at the sellers house I'll let them know that their price is fair and I'm going to buy it at that price, but would you take $5.00 less (helps cover my gas costs). It often happens that I get an even better deal because I talk 'shop' and try to be very personable. It always helps to ask what else they have for sale, sometimes they just give you the items so they won't have to bother listing them.

I also search for 'computer' in the Craigslist Wanted section and give away useful computer equipment. Sometimes they just need a replacement power supply and other times they need a complete system for their child. It's nice to be able to provide to others for free.

[cypress]

I search around on Craigs List here and there but never really run into anything. I have bought a desktop on Ebay and laptop before with no problems. Other times I may just get the old system from the client since they were going to throw it away anyways.

[PCX]

This question has been asked and answered a few times before, just search the forums. But in short, yes it can be very profitable, but not with your approach. As others have said, shipping costs and the cost of the laptops themselves coming from ebay is just high cost high risk. We are very profitable with refurbished laptops. We buy broken ones locally and then fix them and sell them. We make about as much if not more than we would if we were just repairing the computer for a customer. We do some advertising on local sites, but mostly (partly because of our name) people call us daily asking if we purchase broken laptops.

[sys-eng]

Craigslist really depends on your locality. In my area, 4 year old laptops are listed for more than I can buy new ones for ($330) so I will not touch them. As others have said, most used laptops need a battery so you have to add that cost up front. The best deals on laptops is buying several on ebay of the same model with locked BIOS passwords and preferably from the same seller to consolidate shipping. This is a good deal ONLY if you know how to reset the password.

I have bought 2-3 year old enterprise series Dells on ebay that were in great shape (some still had factory shrink wrap). I updated Windows, install OpenOffice or LibreOffice and other free programs and doubled my money but it is still only about $150 profit.

The only real good deals I have seen on laptops is by purchasing a pallet load at a time but you must be willing to spend time on them and need a reseller/oem license to install Windows 7 for cheap.