Wednesday, May 15, 2013

My Printer Stash



I have over 100 printers in my garage. Most of them Canon Pixmas. All of these printers are store returns. They all have the store receipts attached to them stating why the customer returned them. Most of them brand new!
Locally there is a liquidation warehouse that I found about a year ago. If you know what Costco is, alot of their returns go to this warehouse. They have an online auction every Wednesday! (Over 1,000 items). So literally if we have something we want to bid on, I leave my computer on during the day, keep an eye on what item number they are on throughout the day, and periodically check in until my item is up, and I bid! Its awesome. We have won some great items. When we moved into our house we were able to get a brand new couch for $300 that retailed $1500 at Costco. The printers I won were kind of a fluke. My husband happened to come home early on a Wednesday. My laptop was open with the auction as I was prepping dinner. He saw the pallet of printers (about 50 of them) and said, "Hey we should bid on these, you might be able to resell them." My initial reaction was no way you are crazy. But before I could really put my 2 cents in, he bid on them and won the pallet of 50 printers for $80.
After the auction you schedule a pickup time. For as unorganized as this warehouse looks, its VERY organized. Hubby went down and picked up the printers for me, and there you have it.... I realized I CAN make a good deal of money off these bad boys. When I started going through my first pallet, I found new ink in almost all of the boxes. I started selling the ink first. When I would list ink, it would generally sell within a few hours. After that I started selling printers new, used, and for parts.
Since our first pallet we have won 2 more, bringing my stash to about 200 printers. I prob have about 100 left to sell. I am estimating my profit so far, including the initial investment to be well over $1500.
Awesome right?
Now- These liquidation places are EVERYWHERE. How can you find one?
The one I use is part of IMASD, which stands for The Internet Marketing Association of Surplus Dealers.
You can CLICK HERE to go to there website to search your state to see if there is one near you.
Let me know if you find anything in your area. Hope this helps someone looking for something fun to sell!

5 comments:

  1. You were brave to make that leap! I could never do that because of lack of storage. It sounds like a great deal, though!

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  2. Hi Ashley!

    You are doing great - congrats! I've sold on EB off and on since 1998. It has all been stuff found while thrifting, etc.

    I am very curious about wholesale/auction type of sourcing you did with the printers. I looked up some of the liquidators from your link and I don't see any "auctions" - just notification list options. Did you sign up with a specific liquidator to get on their auction list?

    Thanks!

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    1. Yes I am specifically with the one in my city. It seems that each liquidator sells their items differently. I didn't have to sign up on any specific list, because it is open to the public. I think the liquidator I use is mainly specific to my area. They do ship if you live out of the area, but I have heard they ship at ridiculous prices.
      So I am guess that the ones in your area dont have auctions? On my link, I noticed at the bottom of the website there are newsletters to join and other info that may lead you to other liquidators. The ones listed on the site are just the ones affiliated with the IMASD.
      Sorry I dont know if I am answering your question.

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  3. That helps. I'll just poke around until I find an auction. :) Thanks!

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  4. That's a lot of printers! Good thing your husband has a good business sense and thought about selling them. Like Linden said, that was a leap of faith, but you were lucky indeed.

    Fletcher Hevey @ ConcordSupplies.com

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