/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.56640802]

I make $80k a year selling used appliance parts out of my garage.
AMA

[Anonymous No.56640803]

where do you get them?

[Anonymous No.56640808]

>>56640803
I buy used/broken appliances and break them down.

[Anonymous No.56640841]

>>56640808
Primarily, I buy them from scrappers by the truckload. Then they take away the leftover scrap metal. I never have to leave the house!

[Anonymous No.56640856]

>>56640808
Interesting. Are they worth shipping? Is it 80k pure profit? How many transactions do you average a year?

[Anonymous No.56640869]

>>56640808
Where do you sell the parts?

[Anonymous No.56640886]

>>56640856
$80k pure profit, ~6500 transactions, around $170k in sales (eBay takes their cut)
That was last year, this year is showing to be about the same.
Some parts are only worth $10, some are worth over a hundred. All are worth scavenging. I treat these machines like buffalo.

[Anonymous No.56640896]

>>56640886
based
where do you store all of them

[Anonymous No.56640901]

>>56640869
eBay, mostly. I have my own site but it accounts for less than 2% of my sales. I keep it around because it's low-maintenance and I make a little more due to lack of eBay fees.

[Anonymous No.56640910]

>>56640841
then you repair them? why dont the scrappers just send you all shitty ones? then they get your cash and get the scrap metal back

[Anonymous No.56640913]

>>56640896
In the garage and in the attic.

[Anonymous No.56640941]

>>56640910
No, I break them down. Even if they are already still working, it's more profitable to break them down than resell them. Even the shitty ones have lots of valuable parts, older ones have these gearcases that sell for good money, plus the timer module. Those combined are about $200. And most of the scrappers don't want to (or are unable to) deal with storing these machines and selling them.
So I give them a bit above scrapyard value, plus some scrap metal, and they stay loyal.
And there's this one guy who seethes because I'm his competition, he fixes and sells the washers. But all the scrappers in the area prefer to sell to me because he's flaky as fuck.

[Anonymous No.56641012]

>>56640802
How do you scale?

[Anonymous No.56641048]

>>56641012
I just keep my SKUs on point and my workstations organized. It's just me, working for me, and I probably could make a bigger business out of it, but I'd have to rent a warehouse and all that crap. I'm happy where I am, with minimal overhead and good profit. Getting ready to buy my first rental property. On track to retire at 40. The dream! So long as our financial system doesn't collapse anyway.

[Anonymous No.56641078]

>>56640941
>>56641048
that's awesome bro good job

[Anonymous No.56641088]

>>56640802
>making money
>saving the environment from more scrapped appliances
extremely based, nice job.

[Anonymous No.56641115]

>>56640802
Where do you learn how to break the parts down? Been thinking about doing something along the lines of this since I live close to a scrapyard.

[Anonymous No.56641127]

>>56640802
do you attempt to fault find a machine before stripping it for parts to avoid selling a faulty part? I do the same other electronic goods but I find this part to be time consuming

[Anonymous No.56641134]

>>56640802
Best thread on biz
Congrats OP, i'm very happy for you, good luck in further endeavours

[Anonymous No.56641248]

>>56641115
When in doubt, I just take wire connectors off and take screws out until it all falls apart. I'm rarely in doubt anymore though.

>>56641127
No, I have a good return policy and I find it's not worth the time. Often times they don't even bother sending it back anyway. Master of the apology, that's me.

I do test the parts when it's easy to do so, with a multimeter and whatnot. So I catch a good chunk of the defective parts before they go onto the shelf.

[Anonymous No.56641268]

>>56640802
is all the work worth it? sounds like a lot of work.

[Anonymous No.56641283]

>>56641268
About a 40 hour work week.

[Anonymous No.56641324]

I don’t understand how this is possible out of a garage. I sell small industrial parts and storage is one of the most valuable resource a business can have. What you say makes no sense unless your garage is 1,000 sq ft. Also how often do you go to the dump? Thanks for the info we’re almost in the same industry I’ve sold some of these parts before but I don’t break things down. Storage would be impossible.

[Anonymous No.56641349]

>>56640802
i dont believe this because americans cannot fix appliances. if something happens to an appliances it is replaced most areas don’t have any appliance service companies beyond manufacture direct repair services which consists of a single service repair guys for an entire state at best IF service repairs are even being scheduled at all.

[Anonymous No.56641352]

so based

[Anonymous No.56641356]

>>56640802

How do you source parts for old equipment? Do you just fix the broken bits or do a full refurbish?

[Anonymous No.56641432]

>>56641349
Just go to eBay sold listings. Tons of people try to fix their shit. They buy some junky poorly tested junk part like from OP. Swap it out, doesn’t work. I’ve bought used HVAC parts; another huge market and certainly a liability waiting to happen.

[Anonymous No.56641450]

>>56640886
Who buys all these parts

I imagine todays society washers aren't repaired that often but rathrr thrown away and a new one bought

Are those parts used elsewhere?

[Anonymous No.56641572]

>>56641450
A mix of independent repair contractors and DIY-ers

[Anonymous No.56641589]

>>56641356
More than 20% of my parts actually go to puerto rico. Noone else wants to ship there and I guess they're a lot more repair-centric.

[Anonymous No.56641728]

>>56641283
how many hours from the idea to your first revenue day?
how many hours from your first revenue day to your first profitable day?

[Anonymous No.56641926]

>>56641589
That's interesting does it cost more for you to ship to them or other sellers just don't want to deal with non domestic shipping?

[Anonymous No.56642189]

>>56640802

Any recommendations for washing machines? I've been looking at Speed Queens and avoiding Samsung

[Anonymous No.56642226]

>>56640802
I made 200k sales and 120k profit last year on ebay just by stripping parts off of cars at the pick and pull and listing them online.

[Anonymous No.56642554]

>>56640886
I hope you saved receipts on every purchase and sale. IRS is going to fuck you hard using their new laws.

[Anonymous No.56642589]

>>56642226
Nice. I think alot of places wised up to this though as they don’t let you pull your own parts anymore.

[Anonymous No.56642611]

>>56640802
>>56642226
I always wondered, whats the scav economy like in the west? It's extremely huge in Africa and SEA, so there's a large amount of competition in the markets overall driving prices down.
So my questions boil down to these two:
Is it the same in the west (specifically relating to competition)? & Is this feasible to scale?

[Anonymous No.56642632]

>>56640802
Whats the Toyota Corolla of washing machines/dryers/refrigerators/ovens/dishwashers?

[Anonymous No.56643016]

>>56640802
Very interesting thread OP. Grats on the business-- I enjoy reading about this type of thing. How did you get started? Did you have one of your own appliances break and then just decide to part it out only to find it profitable? Always curious how people stumble into new businesses.

[Anonymous No.56643671]

>>56642632
I remember it used to be sunroof motors - I don't recall specifically, maybe honda civics?
>>56643016
Yeah nice OP

[Anonymous No.56643884]

>>56640901
Based. Someone like you saved me a new washer once.

Either buy a whole new washer, or this one single small part, probably worth cents, for 15 bucks. Still have it! Thank you anon.

[Anonymous No.56643941]

>>56642554
>Raping the buyers and sellers is going to save the economy

[Anonymous No.56643970]

>>56640802
Any parts to sell off from a vacuum?

[Anonymous No.56643976]

Eh idk sounds like larp. This would be a crazy hard business for the money

[Anonymous No.56644042]

>>56641349

I literally fix my appliances lol. Why get a new one when one part (especially if it's a cheaper one) will get it working again for another couple years at least? Super wasteful not to. Plus most normies can't afford to buy that shit with cash, so they're fucking financing and paying interest on their new washer and dryer on top of it all.

[Anonymous No.56645165]

>>56641926
It costs more to ship there, but it's easy enough to pass that cost onto the buyer

>>56642189
I dunno. I could more easily tell you what not to buy based on what I get in. But I don't really keep track. Samsung accounts for at least 30% though.

>>56642554
Fo sho.

>>56642611
Hard to say about scalability. I think it could scale, but if I tried to scale, my profits would get a lot worse before they got better. I guess competition isn't so bad because the money's good.

>>56643016
I started in appliance repair. But that shit sucked (I went through a contracting company that ate half the profits) and occasionally I'd get people who wanted to pay me to take their old appliances away because they didn't want to pay for the repair. After a few dozen major screwups, I decided the repair business wasn't for me, and by then I had already discovered that I enjoy taking things apart more than putting them together.

>>56643970
I don't know. I've heard there might be, but I never imagined vacuums to be a repair item. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Elton No.56645364]

All the money, all the time, and yet I am so hollow. Just a loathsome scavenger, whose only friends are computers, washing machine parts, and abstract handbuilt mechanisms with less purpose than myself. It's true I'd rather deconstruct than build, as I'd rather be a spectacle than a friend. Yet I still build, and yet I am neither. How long can this go on?

[Anonymous No.56645387]

>>56640802
lol you probably sold me the key to the laundry machine in my building I use to get free laundry.

[Anonymous No.56646711]

>>56645165
Good thread, friend. Are you like a master disassembler? I fix my own stuff and am curious about the learning curve to do this for money. How would you rate yourself against the average DIYer?

[Anonymous No.56646842]

>>56641324
absolutely this
you shift near anything parts to retail, you (inevitably) end up drowning in the shit. 'A Garage..' would maybe last me a few weeks, if that. You got a spare aircraft hangar with racking tho, can run a sweet business, maybe a year or so. Before that fills up. Its unavoidable.

[Anonymous No.56646956]

>>56645364
Keep it up OP you are creating a useful and valuable service that:

> reduces useless waste of natural resources
> helps people realize they have the skills to repair machinery thus making them more confident and fulfilled

Keep fighting the good fight friend, super cool thread and super cool business

[Anonymous No.56647018]

>>56641283
>40 hour work week
I'm out