What do you do with extra components?

[Corporate666]

We just switched one of our legacy products over to an updated version.  I was going through the warehouse looking at leftover reels and I have anywhere from many hundreds to tens of thousands of some components that we won't be using anymore. 

I know there's a lot of brokerage sites out there but I am not sure if anyone used them with success?  I often buy parts on clearance at Verical and some cut tapes and such, so it's not always full reels.  For example I have 2,800 NUD4001DR2G LED drivers, 5 sealed packages of 500pcs on tape and 300 left of the previous 500 tape.

What to do with them?  It's not that much $$$ we're talking about... maybe 2-3 thousand bucks is what we spent on these parts, so I'm not sure if it's worth trying to sell them or just hang on to them in case we ever use in future (although I doubt it), or for ongoing warranty issues over the years (but frankly it's way more than we need for that).

Any experience or suggestions in this area?

[uncle_bob]

We just switched one of our legacy products over to an updated version.  I was going through the warehouse looking at leftover reels and I have anywhere from many hundreds to tens of thousands of some components that we won't be using anymore. 

I know there's a lot of brokerage sites out there but I am not sure if anyone used them with success?  I often buy parts on clearance at Verical and some cut tapes and such, so it's not always full reels.  For example I have 2,800 NUD4001DR2G LED drivers, 5 sealed packages of 500pcs on tape and 300 left of the previous 500 tape.

What to do with them?  It's not that much $$$ we're talking about... maybe 2-3 thousand bucks is what we spent on these parts, so I'm not sure if it's worth trying to sell them or just hang on to them in case we ever use in future (although I doubt it), or for ongoing warranty issues over the years (but frankly it's way more than we need for that).

Any experience or suggestions in this area?

Hi

Options:

1) Dumpster (if hazmat rules allow it).

2) Sell as a bulk lot to a broker for a few hundred dollars.

3) Try returning any unused reels to the people you bought them from

4) Sell a reel at a time on eBay and make big bucks (maybe 2X a few hundred dollars).

5) Give them away to a local organization

6) Give them away to employees

That's in no particular order. The problem is that the cost of recovering money out of them likely exceeds the costs associated with selling them ....

Bob

[sleemanj]

 I expect your goal is just to get rid of them, you probably don't really care much about recovering cost, so it's just whatever you can get for them easily.

Put enough aside for warranty issues.

Stick the rest on eBay as a single bulk lot, or offer to your staff first incase one of them feels like splitting them up and spending the next 10 years hocking them off in dribs and drabs on eBay.

[Corporate666]

5) Give them away to a local organization

6) Give them away to employees

That's actually a really good idea!   I've done a 50/50 deal before with employees where I give them the stuff to list on eBay and we split the net profit.  It's worked out really well in the past.  For the stuff that's less salable (partial reels of resistors and such), I'll see if there's a local hacker space that can use it.  I could probably fill a pickup truck with all the unused stuff we've collected over the years.

[uncle_bob]

5) Give them away to a local organization

6) Give them away to employees

That's actually a really good idea!   I've done a 50/50 deal before with employees where I give them the stuff to list on eBay and we split the net profit.  It's worked out really well in the past.  For the stuff that's less salable (partial reels of resistors and such), I'll see if there's a local hacker space that can use it.  I could probably fill a pickup truck with all the unused stuff we've collected over the years.

Hi

The donation approach can have a few advantages. In some cases you might get a minor tax write off (say it's a school). Even without something special, getting them off the books will help tax wise (it's a legitimate loss).  In most cases you can get a bit of good publicity. In the case of a hacker group, it's conceivable you might tie into a very useful set of resources for that next prototype you need to build...

Bob

[sarepairman2]

you might have process problems with ancient oxidized components if you want to actually build something other then a prototype.

why not mail dave jones a shipping container?

[ez24]

Any experience or suggestions in this area?

Ebay has a new service in the US (so new maybe not today) that works with FedEx.  Search on "ebay valet fedex" or try this

http://sellforme.ebay.com/dropOff?zipcode=30033

It is so new a lot of the links come up with their trial service

You take your stuff to FedEx (min $40 value) and they take the info from you and take pictures then Fedex sends it to ebay and they list, pack, and ship

Next week I will try it out  (per my local FedEx request)

Seems an easy way to get rid of stuff.