How to sell excess electronic components

You’ve found yourself with some cancelled orders — excess inventory is piling up in your warehouse, and your finance lead wants to liquidate it to free up some cash. What do you do now?

Here’s a quick playbook you can follow to turn that inventory back into cash. In this article, we’ll go through the following process:

1. Make an inventory list
2. Find a list of buyers
3. Start dialing!
4. Negotiate
5. Logistics

Make a list of what you want to sell

This list should include:

1. Manufacturer part number
2. Manufacturer
3. Total quantity to sell
4. Date code
5. Relevant descriptions
6. Target price (or minimum that your team wants to receive)

This should be in a properly formatted spreadsheet. Below is an example of what your sheet should look like:

Find a bunch of buyers.

If you don’t already have a network of manufacturers who you would be happy selling to you, the best bet you have is to visit the broker market.

The broker market is where you will find plenty of buyers. They will not pay as high of a price as the manufacturers. On average, they will bid around 5% of the value of the parts so they can resell them. Brokers also rarely close deals, and spend more time “kicking tires”.

To find brokers, you can do any (and all!) of the following:

• Google for excess component buyers
• Post your parts on netCOMPONENTS
• Post your parts on HKInventory
• Talk to your connections in the industry to see if they know any brokers

My general advice here: more is better. Most brokers are unwilling to pay a fair price, so don’t get stuck talking to one or two for your surplus inventory. Make sure that you have multiple at once, in case one pulls out.

If you don’t want to deal with any brokers, you can always contact Mobius Materials and send us your stock list. We will do all of this on your behalf!

Start Dialing!

Now that you have your list of brokers and excess components, send them a list along with context on the parts. Some information that is useful for brokers:

• Pictures of the parts
• How soon you can ship out
• Payment terms you can accept
• The location of your warehouse

Come prepared with that information. It will make the negotiations process much easier. Speaking of which…

Time to negotiate!

Buyers love to haggle. And call at all times of the day. And send follow up emails.

Once you take on this endeavor, be prepared as this will be a full-time-operation. You should probably dedicate a team member to this so the buyers have a single point of contact that they can rely on.

There are some great resources on negotiation such as Influence (great for not getting tricked), Getting to Yes, and Never Split the Difference. All are great reads.

But if you want the real trick to negotiation, here it is: Both parties are on the same team. Identify everybody’s wants, and find a matching solution.

What matters most to you? What matters most to them? What can you give that doesn’t matter to you, but is everything to them?

Now that you have entered into a deal, it’s time for logistics.

Logistics

Now you have to ship the parts from your location to their location.

Depending on your package size and negotiated rates, it probably makes sense to stick with Fedex, DHL, or UPS.

To ship, you will of course need to pack everything up, slap on a label, and fill out a bunch of customs forms.

If your seller is foreign, you’ll have to get the correct compliance forms. If they are domestic, you should just need their resale certificate. Make sure all of these are accurate and complete, as you don’t want to get in trouble if you sell the wrong parts to an organization.

While creating a label for your package, you will also be shown some forms to complete for UPS or Fedex. This could include information that is also on the invoice, the part itself, or an online database (like HTSUS). Fill out and print these forms, so that they can be looked at by the customs officers as they cross borders.

Congratulations! You just sold your first components.