Buying Refurbished Apple Products in Bulk

Last Updated: March 15th, 2020

Certain brands easily turn into household names while some, besides the quality they provide, become more of a social norm or a fashion statement. The latter can be said for the products sold under the Apple brand. This means that there is certainly a market for these products. However, being part of the electronics market, Apple products, such as iPhone or the iPad, obviously have a large number of suppliers. This means you will be facing stern competition.

If you are looking for how to run a successful online business that includes selling Apple products, you should look for ways to source your products cheaper than the competition. This will allow you not only to remain afloat, but rather to stand head and shoulders above the rest. You don’t have to look for niche pockets and gaps in the market. Instead, you have to look for the best possible source, as well as the products that will be of great quality and provide you with a healthy profit margin on resale.

View all liquidated Apple products here.

What Apple Products Should I Buy?

Here we are not talking about iPhones and iPads. We are actually talking about whether you should be buying electronics wholesale, attempting to strike deals with wholesale product suppliers for brand new merchandise or whether maybe you should look to buy pallets of returned merchandise, or refurbished electronics wholesale.

Brand new merchandise is attractive and barely needs any advertising or marketing, especially if it is a hot item like any of the Apple products. However, while this would be the perfect way of entering the market, it is very hard to find the supplier that will deliver the goods at prices which would guarantee you a healthy profit margin. Instead, you should look to take a different approach to the issue. You should find the products that are of good quality, but cheap.

This is where buying refurbished electronics wholesale or in bulk comes into play. To understand why we are advising you to go for refurbished products, you have to understand the pros and cons of such a step.

Many would associate broken products to refurbished products. This is only true to the extent that some products may have been broken previously, but have been brought to their “as new” condition by the manufacturers and put up for sale again. You might ask why would such products appeal to you. The truth is that while some products are refurbished, a significant portion of products that get returned by the customers are unopened and unused.

Customers might have returned the product because they have received another one while waiting for the delivery, or maybe the seller shipped the wrong product, or the wrong colour of the product, and the buyer simply returned it without unpacking the box. While these products are essentially new, many of these products are no longer sold as new, and are instead sold as refurbished items. So, when speaking about the appeal of refurbished Apple products, you have to speak about two positives: the price and the quality.

The price should be the main reason one decides to buy refurbished electronics wholesale because they are being sold at prices well below wholesale merchandise. This is a major step towards securing a healthy profit margin and products that would keep you competitive in a tight market. The second positive is the quality. While refurbished products might have been broken at some point of time, manufacturers put them through a series of strict tests during the refurbishing process, ensuring these products are working to the best of their capacity, like when they left the assembly line in the first place.

These refurbishments are done to such a high level for a very important reason. The manufacturer hates to see one product return to the refurbishing department too many times. Having a product returned often costs the manufacturer money and time, and it is also damaging to their reputation. It also has to be noted again that a significant portion of refurbished products is actually new, in original boxes with no issues.

However, while buying refurbished products can elevate your business to a new level, it can also be the cause of your failure if you are not careful. The risks are that you could end up buying pallets of broken or damaged Apple products that would push your costs up as you’d have to repair them before reselling, which would result in your profit margin vanishing. To avoid this, you must know where to buy Apple products and how to maximize your profit margin.

Where to Buy Apple Products?

There are several options for you when it comes to sourcing Apple products. Several sources spring to mind, all of which would enable buying electronics in bulk, however, there are several differences, in quality as well as price.

First, buying wholesale electronics for resale is a good way to start simply because buying in bulk reduces the price of single units, and in the United States, you can avoid paying tax if you are purchasing products for resale. Wholesale product suppliers can be a good starting point, but there are even cheaper options, like liquidation companies. The price difference comes due to the fact that wholesale suppliers purchase products from manufacturers or retailers in large quantities, by the truckload even, driving the prices down for themselves. However, they break the products apart into smaller pallets or lots and mark the products up for resale.

Buying from liquidators is the cheaper option compared to buy wholesale products to sell online. This is due to the fact that the majority of products sold through liquidation companies are customer returns and refurbished products. However, not every liquidator will do a good job when it comes to sourcing and selling quality merchandise, cheaper is not always the best.

This is where you have to use your research skills and find the most reputable liquidators who will not only promise you great service, but have already received rave reviews by previous customers.

In addition, reputable liquidators will always pass the manifest test. The manifest is a list showing you the type, the quantity and the quality of merchandise contained within one pallet. While reputable liquidators will always provide a detailed manifest for all sorted pallets, so that you know what you are buying, dodgy companies will decline to provide you such information or give out partial details.

This is a huge warning sign and usually means you should back away from that supplier. Top-tier liquidators also work with both manufacturers and retailers ensuring a high minimum quality level for each product before it can be listed on the liquidator’s website. This means you never have to worry about the quality of the products, which the liquidators themselves will back with a 90-day warranty on their part.

So if you are looking to grow your online resale business by purchasing refurbished Apple products, this guide shows you the direction in which to look. Selling refurbished Apple products can be a great way of making money, either as a full-time or a part-time job but only if you stock up through reputable sources.

Direct Liquidation is a goTRG company.

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Henley Johnson

Henley currently works as a sales representative for Direct Liquidation, assisting businesses with product sourcing of liquidated merchandise from the largest retailers in the world. Whether you are looking for a pallet or a truckload Henley is here to help you grow your business.

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