Where do they get these bulk goods?

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strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I've seen lots of ads like this on Craigslist, Facebook, etc., people selling what appears to be an entire aisle from Home Depot out of a storage facility or low-budget "roll up door" type industrial complex, sometimes even from a residential home garage. Usually it's power tools, but sometimes it's patio furniture or, in this case, air conditioners. Where do they get this stuff? I doubt it's "fell off a truck" stuff, as it would be pretty brazen to post it publicly as they do. And sometimes they have way more than a single truckload of goods. I've been to a few of these places and the stuff they were selling was legit. Not knockoffs, not scratch and dent, just perfectly fine stuff in perfectly fine factory packaging, sold out of a dusty storage lot instead of a big box store. If they're selling it at half price and making a profit, then they have to be buying at, maybe 25% retail cost? How do I get that deal?
 

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Externet

Joined Nov 29, 2005
2,202
There is a company in my neighborhood selling all sorts of things by the pallet. When I asked the source; it is 'customer returns' from Target, Macy's, Walmart, KMart... and new items out-of-season, unsold for a long time, or from belly-up/brands, discontinued items...
Seems there is a law that prohibits selling returned items to the public for certain stores within the store. And a law that allows to sell/get rid of the items as 'junk' outside the store...
I suppose the contact is with management of those big stores. But you cannot choose what to buy. You get a pallet with items, yes you can choose which pallet... Works good for rural thrifty resellers and church sales, fund raisers, yard sales...

I tried once to buy from Lowe's, dented appliances or used appliances removed from customers who upgrade/buy new ones, found there is contracted 'recyclers' holding tight, running refurbished appliances businesses. It is surprising how many wealthy people change their perfectly working refrigerator for the newest one that has a digital screen, or stainless finish, or whatever.
Do not be surprised to find lazy people replacing their microwave oven because it is dirty. I will abstain commenting on it :eek:
 

Glenn Holland

Joined Dec 26, 2014
703
Some (or most) of these items are stolen from various places and they are usually inside jobs.

Back in the 1980s, I worked at a bus garage at our transit agency that was located across the street from a Sears store. There were men who would come into the garage telling employees that they could get TVs and other stuff from Sears at 1/2 off the retail price. One said that once he got paid, he would leave the goods on a loading dock where the "customer" could come by and pick it up.

However, there are legitimate sellers who legally acquire damaged merchandise as "liquidators". They are often associated with natural disasters where a large amount of merchandise is damaged and they take it off the owners hands, often at the recommendation of insurance companies who want to settle a claim ASAP.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
There is a company in my neighborhood selling all sorts of things by the pallet. When I asked the source; it is 'customer returns' from Target, Macy's, Walmart, KMart... and new items out-of-season, unsold for a long time, or from belly-up/brands, discontinued items.
We had a K-mart distribution center locally. They had auctions from time to time selling stuff by the skid. And it was all customer returns, some broken some stuff, some was just things a customer decided they didn't like. After every auction, the 'flea market' vendors would have the stuff for sale.
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
Some (or most) of these items are stolen from various places and they are usually inside jobs.
Ha! Last year, I got a pallet of laptops delivered to my office.

It turned out one of my employees was trying to play "middle man" for a former employee of the laptop manufacturer. He was supposed to ship them on to their final destination -- but I was around to sign for a shipment I wasn't expecting. Busted!

What a freakin' fiasco that turned out to be.
 

Externet

Joined Nov 29, 2005
2,202
In relation to electronics, There were several storefronts in my neighborhood like Halted, Weird stuff, Haltek, Alltronics, RA, Allelectronics, and about half a dozen more in the 90's, all selling leftovers auctioned from Silicon Valley manufacturers. When a product went into end-of-life production, belly-up, new model, bankruptcy, moving to China, the parts stock ended reselling by these. HSC , my favorite candy store is still alive, I think.
Even got 4 oscilloscopes at the metal recycling center for $1 a pound. Entire production line equipment and test equipment piled up from dump trucks !
Once I was on top of a 25 feet high pile of electronic junk scavenging for goodies, when the foreman yelled angry at me because of the liability. Computers and laptops and mainframes from office equipment all mixed in. It was my Disneyland...
Imagine the same panorama in China today ?
Picked about 20 reels of 1% resistors at my workplace dumpster, traded for a good multimeter at one of these resellers. Both happy.


----> http://www.junktronix.com/svss/
 

DickCappels

Joined Aug 21, 2008
10,152
I can tell you that I was crushed when coming across things in Haltek and Weird Stuff that I had designed or worked on. Crushed, crushed crushed, I tell you.

But I sure loved going through their stuff. One of the great things about living in Silicon Valley (20 years ago,don't know about today) was I was sure to run into old friends at those places whenever there was three day week-end.
 
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