Trying to Unload Your Dishwasher?Find Out About Selling Used Equipment Online
Let’s say you’ve had it with your dishwasher. The machine that served you so well when you were doing less than $400 a day, is a bottleneck now that you’re doing almost double that. So what you do?
Selling used restaurant equipment can be one of the toughest things you can do. Firstly, you’re not in the business of selling used restaurant equipment-you’re in the restaurant business. But you would be competing with people whose jobs to sell restaurant equipment, both new and used, every minute of every day.
The second factor that makes selling used restaurant equipment so tough has to do with the mortality rate of this business. Everyone is aware of the number of coffee shops and restaurants that go out of business every year. Every single one of those restaurants that go out of business adds to the inventory of use restaurant equipment on the market. In fact, it’s not just restaurants that are selling used restaurant equipment these days, you also have to worry about convenience stores, bookstores, and any other business that thinks it can add to its top line by serving coffee.
If selling used restaurant equipment is so difficult, what should you do?
Of course, you could just scrap it. But often, you’ve already put the same money to buy the machine into repairing it. And it still has some life in it anyway. So by walking away from it, you’d be leaving money on the table. An uneasy choice in these difficult times.
Secondly, you could make it part of your deal for the dishwasher. But we know that the guy who will take it off your hands is not going to give you fair value for it-that is, if he’s willing to include it in the deal at all. And if he does included in the deal, he’ll definitely make you feel like he’s doing you a favor. And that will have implications on the terms of this deal, and for other future deals.
Also doing it this way puts you at a distinct disadvantage. The supplier knows that for the most part he’s the only game in town. He knows that he is one of a very select group of people who can help someone who is selling used restaurant equipment.
Furthermore, for many of us negotiation is not exactly our forte. So we know that in the “hammer and nail game”, we’ll generally turn out to be the nail-especially since we’re going up again just people who do this kind of deal every day. So just walking away from that old dishwasher keeps sounding better and better.
I believe that selling used restaurant equipment online is the best solution for most people. Selling your used equipment online eliminates many of the issues raised in the preceding paragraphs; and at the same time guarantees you the best possible price.
The biggest advantage that selling used equipment online has is in the multitude of people who are online looking for stuff at any given time. Those statistics that describe the number of restaurant failures every day, also talk about the number of restaurant startups every day-if not in your city, then around the country and even the continent.
This eliminates the problem of too few buyers. At the right price, someone in a town hundreds or thousands of miles away from you would be willing to take that dishwasher off your hands.
Also if you’re selling used restaurant equipment online and you’re using an auction site such as eBay, you don’t have to worry about your negotiation skills. It’s an auction, so your dishwasher will be involved in a bidding process. Not only does this eliminates the necessity for negotiation skills, it also ensures that you get the best price for your dishwasher.
The other advantage of using an auction site when you’re selling used restaurant equipment online, is that you’re aware of your buyers online reputation. Most of these sites, like eBay, will track the feedback of their users based on prior transactions. So you’re pretty safe when you sell used equipment online because you know that based on their history, your buyer has always paid up on time. This is even better than in the real world where you may sell something to someone and then either have difficulties collecting payment; or when you try cash the check you find that it comes back.
As small-business people we can never afford to leave any money on the table. So when it comes to getting rid of old equipment, it is important that we get the best deal possible. It has been my experience that the best deal, especially in recent years, is found by selling used restaurant equipment online.