Economics of surplus trading

It was good for nobody but Mr K C. And not even for him in the end. Never heard what became of him, but in the end everybody was after him. The law on both sides of the 49th and the Triads in mainland China, and suppliers in Taiwan.

If there isn't a minimum of 10% profit in a hands-on technology like computers, nobody can afford to give any level of support or expect to stay in business.

He had to sell most of that to builders & computer stores. He wouldn't have had time to sell it in ones & twos to end users. I'm sure that they made over 10%.

I'd guess that it had no value to people who scrapped it: it probably was fully amortized, so their main concern was to get rid of it quickly. Nobody had vested interest in extracting value from it, and/or an idea how to do it, so off it goes to the dump.

Such business ideas are sometimes tricky and may come about in convoluted ways. I asked a guy working for 80-20 how it came about that they sell on ebay. It turns out that they were equipping sales vans, and ended up with a pile of bucket seats. Because it was a relatively small company at the time, someone had an idea to sell them on ebay, and they got some cash out if that---and liked the experience so much that they decided to use ebay as a sales channel for their main product.

while that may be true...it makes my teeth itch.

Gunner

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure

- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

- Jeff Cooper

It s true only if you can find unlimited business or are space constrained.

That too.

Gunner

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure

- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

- Jeff Cooper

I have many things to worry about. But I noticed a pattern.

If I fill my warehouse to the brim (like it was 3 weeks ago), I start worrying about becoming paralyzed by stuff, I feel that I will never "sell it all".

So, I go in a panic mode, start selling as much as possible, and after a while, stuff sells and I end up in an empty looking warehouse. Then I begin worrying about "where am I going to find new stuff to sell", go in a panic mode, run around looking for business, and fill my warehuose to the brim again.

This business is reminiscent of elephant hunting.

Ignoramus11402 Inscribed thus:

Yep. All fat or all famine... No happy medium !

"Ignoramus11402" wrote in message >

Beware the boomslang.

jsw

Gunner on Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:13:58 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

If I need the cash "now" - I take what can get. I sold a dodge truck for 200, because I did not have the time (or space) to part it out.

Better sometimes to have a third of a two pound pie, than half a one pound pie. Another thing most politicians don't understand.

tschus pyotr

That may not be the most efficient way to run the business. I have never noticed a pattern to my (very different) business, but it is very irregular. There will be months with nearly zero sales, and months where I am going crazy trying to get stuff made and shipped out. I have come to accept that a small business HAS to be irregular, it is a statistical process.

Some general, long-term patterns are detectable, when the US downturn hit, I got a lot of European business, now that Europe has a problem, the US sales are picking up. But, on a shorter time span, it is just very irregular.

Jon

Some friends of mine manufacture a couple aluminum framed products. They use the slow periods to build up inventory, since it is used up quickly when the next round of orders come in. It's also the time to clean the shop, repair machines & update their computers & network.

This is what I do in slow tmes.

They also shut down for two weeks for Christmas & New Years, and every employee gets two weeks vacation except the owners, if there is any major work to be done on the facilities.

Looks interesting. I would need to find a host, but that's under $10 a month these days. I'll dig out an old server to try it out.