Top Tips for Repairing Liquidated Wholesale Merchandise

If you bulk buy pallets of wholesale merchandise from an online liquidation marketplace, you’ll be aware that some items in a pallet of untested customer returns, overstock and closeouts will be in a ‘tested-not-working’ condition.

Whether it’s a pallet of smartphones and tablets, a pallet of tools from Lowe’s Hardware or a pallet of wholesale laptops, there will be a number of units per pallet that won’t work for a variety of reasons.

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These are not, however, dead units. By following a few handy hints and tips, resellers can make the most out of their bulk purchases by bringing broken merchandise back to a working condition where it’s sellable and therefore more likely to make your business a profit.

Repairing Liquidated Pallets of Electronics

Some of the most popular things bought from liquidators to repair are electronic items. Liquidators sell thousands of consumer electronics on behalf of big name stores such as Walmart and Target every year, and because a lot of what they sell is classified as ‘untested’, there will inevitably be broken units mixed in among working merchandise.

Rather than throwing these broken units in the trash, however, they can often be repaired using components from other broken units. For example, in a pallet of laptops, there may be six classed as ‘tested not working’. However, if one has a battery in working order but a smashed screen, and another has a broken battery but a perfectly working screen, the battery can be swapped out and you, therefore, have a fully-working laptop that can be sold to your customers.

This process can be repeated another couple of times, and suddenly out of a pile of broken laptops, you have three working refurbished laptops that can be put on the market and make you money. And on top of this, the remaining laptops contain plenty of internal components such as graphics cards, CPUs and hard drives that could be used to repair future bulk purchases.

By keeping these units around, you can often cannibalize their interiors and make broken electronics others would likely throw away useable again and therefore sellable. This applies to so many consumer electronics you will buy from a liquidator, from smartphones and tablets, TVs and monitors and PCs and wholesale laptops, to quadcopters and drones and even certain types children’s toys that contain electronics components.

A Word Of Caution

If you are intending to fix tested not working units from a pallet of wholesale merchandise, there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind before you get started. It might be preferable to get professional companies who specialize in refurbishing tested not working items as opposed to handling the repairs yourself. If the price is right, you should still be able to make a handy profit on the goods you’ve had refurbished.

Oh, and if you deal in refurbished Apple products, it’s probably better to get a professional to handle the repairs to get that important ‘Certified Refurbished’ Apple seal of approval.

If you prefer to go it alone when refurbishing consumer electronics such as wholesale phones and tablets, some precautions must be taken to ensure you don’t damage vital internal components or hurt yourself. If you’ve plugged a laptop in, for example, and found it’s not working, that doesn’t necessarily mean the battery isn’t. Capacitors, which can be found throughout a laptop’s circuitry can store small amounts of electrical charge which can deliver a nasty electric shock. Be sure not to touch the capacitors with your hands, or with any type of conductive material.

You’ll also want to prevent static charge build-up when removing components or repairing them. To prevent electrostatic discharge, use ESD-safe tools and work on a non-static surface while carrying out repairs.

Always try to avoid using metal tools while refurbishing products to prevent scratches which will devalue the merchandise. For example, do not use metal spudgers to lever off phone backs. Non-metal spudgers are available and won’t damage the casings.

When repairing the electrical items you buy wholesale from a liquidator, try to avoid contacting sensitive components with your fingers. There’s a very good reason electrical components are manufactured in sterile, so-called ‘clean’ environments. It’s to prevent even the slightest speck of dust from getting into them. Our fingers contain oils that can damage these delicate components, so avoid touching them as much as possible to prevent oil from getting on to them, and if in doubt, wear finger protectors or gloves.

Finally, it’s important to keep everything as clean as possible. Blow out any dust with compressed air, and if anything needs cleaning manually, use a specialist electronics cleaning product such as Omnicleanz. And remember to use a lint-free cloth while cleaning to prevent scratching.

Mechanical Vs. Technical Repairs

From a financial perspective, mechanical problems are always much easier to fix then technical problems. For example, it’s far easier to yank a broken component out of a lawnmower than it is a state-of-the-art smartphone.

If you’re not confident about doing technical repairs and you can come to a decent repair price with a professional repair company, we would advise sticking to mechanical repairs and leave the technical stuff to the people with the know-how to fix the problem. Carrying out technical repairs is a skilled job. If you doubt your own skills, don’t try giving the repair a go. You may just end up making the situation worse and be left with what could have been repairable merchandise now rendered completely unsellable.

In technical repairs, the best advice is to know your limits when it comes to dealing in the refurbished electronics market.

Maintain Your Customers’ Trust

Finally, for any refurbished goods you sell, whether you’ve done the repairs yourself or handed the repair duties over to a third party, it’s important that you offer your customers a warranty on the refurbished products you sell.

Any repairs you or a third party carries out may not hold up as well as you expected, and if an item you sell breaks just days into a customer using it, they need to know that they can return the item they have bought under warranty back to you and you can offer them a full refund or a like-for-like replacement.

Without a warranty (and even if you’re a certified technician we strongly advise you to offer one anyway), your customers may end up out of pocket, or they may be put off from buying from you altogether. Trust is highly important in retail, so offer that warranty and give your customers the peace of mind that comes from knowing they’re dealing with a reputable retailer. You’re more likely to keep customers onside that way, and you’ll also increase the likelihood that they will return in the future.

Repairing tested not working items bought from liquidation sales can be another way of making profits from the items you buy from an online liquidation marketplace, so don’t delay – repair today!

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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