[Tfug] WorldCare suggestions?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi,

> I don't know what kind of volume you see in donated
> items, but when I walked
> through you had dozens of Dell PCs stacked up in the hall
> to the point of
> almost having no room left. I would suggest you lower the
> cost of these
> significantly to the $25-50 range and move them out. You
> could provide a
> bench where a buyer could hook 'em up and try them

<frown>  Then you end up with folks cherry picking,
pulling parts from machine #1 to "fix" machine #2, etc.

If you've ever been to a UofA auction, you will see that
they handle this by allowing a "preview" day before the
auction.  They have had the problems mentioned above.
As a result, computers are now "taped shut" so about
all you can do is plug it in and see *if* it boots
(note that you can't even look inside to determine if
there is a disk drive in there, memory, etc.).

You can grep the UofA's auction site to get a feel for what
they get for "as is" computers.  WorldCare hasn't (yet)
gone the "as is" route -- all of the machines that they
sell are tested and known to be working.  Supporting
"as is" would mean more space and manpower would have to
be set aside to deal with "potential buyers" -- who
*always* have some sort of question ("Can I get another
512M of memory for this machine?  Do you have any 80G
hard drives available?  etc."

By contrast, asking any of these questions at a UofA
auction will get you a wide grin and an "as is" reply.

Also, note that UofA *expects* you to remove the items
that you purchase from the facility (failing to do so
can get you disqualified from future auctions).  At
WorldCare, you could conceivably bring any "crap"
that you purchased that you don't want (broken, etc.)
right back in the back door as a donation.  How do
they then keep track of what stuff is re-donated as
unsellable?

This has been the argument used against me when I have
suggested selling "as is" pallets of equipment (much
like the UofA does in their "C" lots).  It doesn't
take long for the "supply" to get contaminated with
lots of re-donated stuff as people cherry pick the
good items out of their purchased pallets and
redonate the crap (e.g., *I* dispose of items from
UofA lots at WorldCare -- knowing that *I* will be
able to get them routed directly to the "recycle
as components" pile instead of "refurbish and reuse")

> before buying and then
> you wouldn't have to mess with them at all.

The "stack of Dells" are refurbished and then given to
charities, etc.  Some are sold in the store ~$80.
Since the demand seems to keep pace with their
supply, I suspect there is no need to lower the price
of those (P4's).

I believe 1GHz P3's sell for $20-ish in the store.