Surplus Warehouse (how much, vinyl, flea, paint)

[Alpha8207]

I just returned from my first visit to a Surplus Warehouse.

Does anyone know anything about them?

The prices for doors were unbelievable. And I think it's a store worth driving to but I just wondered if anyone had much experience with them or their products.

[Cosmic]

Interesting, but is it really a surplus store or a sort of come on type deal where they are really selling normal stocked items. Fancy looking stores in the pixs.

Most real surplus stores are more like flea market type settings.

Still wish I had one closer to go have a look / see. You really want surplus which is more contractor grade or industrial grade stuff for give away prices. Really cheap junk tends to be really cheap junk, no matter what you got to pay for it. Maybe put it in the other guys house, best to not do so in your own house.

Never really know until you check it out. Most really good surplus stores never advertise much, they do not have to, word of mouth, usually gives enough of a customer base. Trick is to keep the store overhead extremely low and at super cheap give away prices.

Most of the super good surplus stores probably are not chain stores or have that many stores in so many different states, but you never know until you see. Don't take much to beat the Big Box stores.

[Barking Spider]

Don't know about that store, but I do have a comment on "surplus building material" stores in general.

I had a client a few years ago that was having trouble with his siding. No matter how much he painted it, it looked bad, and seemed to just suck up the paint. He was using high quality paint, not the $5.00 gallon stuff by the way.

It was a name brand siding, so he had the manf. rep come out. Come to find out, the siding was "seconds".

Turns out the lumber yard where he bought it, got it from a surplus dealer, and not the manufacturer, and was selling it as NEW.

The point is, the siding was crap. It not only would not hold paint, it was coming apart. It should have been destroyed instead of being sold to a surplus distributor as seconds.
My second point is about buying "seconds". There is a huge difference in buying a "scratch and dent" something or other, and buying something that didn't make the grade as far as quality control goes.

I would be very careful about what I bought at a surplus store, and there would be some things I would never buy as "seconds". Climbing ropes and carabiners come to mind.

[Alpha8207]

This store is in a very distressed area of Charlotte so I know they are getting smoking rates on their rent.

I haven't ever seen an ad or an advertisment for them and in fact found about them word of mouth from a GC.

I saw a 1.0-3.0-1.0 unfinished mahogany front door unit for $1200. They had several.

I guess over all I was most impressed with their door prices.

I also asked about return policies and they said they had similar policies as their competitors. 30 days with a receipt...etc....

Haven't decided whether to try them or not but haven't really found anything negative on them either....so I just might.

Thanks for the input gang!

[Cosmic]

Just calling it surplus does not make it so.

A good example of a surplus outlet is the Building #19 stores in the Boston area. It really is surplus, stuff may be seconds or manufacture defects, but they will be marked if known. Typical of that type product is textiles. Will say so, right in the company ads.

Most things like siding will never be available as seconds, the manufacturers destroy and recycle the materials in factory. They don't want it available in the open market. Their good name is at risk.

All seconds are marked by some means, in most states it is the law. A stain or stamp is common on like the back or some out of the way place. Stuff manufactured on an assembly line that does not pass first inspection can not be sold as first quality goods. They will have a repair area in the factory to correct many of the items. Those must be sold under a label of something like Remanufactured or similar terms. Common with power tools.

Most real surplus has a source. Much of it is something like a product over run or end of run products, first quality, no buyer, the manufacture dumps it on the surplus market just to get rid of it. Lots is some type of insurance claim, warehouse had a fire, water leak in roof, etc. Insurance company wound up owning the product after they paid off the claim. They in turn dump the products on the surplus market.

You can get things like automated warehouses. Fascinating places if you have ever been in one. Huge acres of tall bins with robots running around. Each item is in bins with bar codes. No humans doing much of anything. The computers stock and pull goods. When a particular bin gets very low on product that is not a good use of the space. At some point the computer will purge the bins with few items, if not being restocked. That all gets dumped into pallets and sold on the surplus market. Bits and pieces of not too much of anything at super knock off price. Was how Bldg #19, got a lot of stuff.

Lots of the products where the packaging got messed up in the warehouse handling or it was damaged or is a clean out type process to purge a storage area. The volumes are not typically huge.

In my local area the surplus stores are sort of one of a kind. They get it from lots of sources, you can go there and sell them just about anything, as well as buy. Lots of their products are rip outs from some contractor doing either a house over or factory or whatever. You must be able to judge horseflesh. Usually the store managers know the history and where it came from. Lots of ours is bankrupt other stores or lumber yards or hardware stores or whatever. A way to dispose of quickly and cheaply the left over bits and pieces of inventory. Goods will have the prior store tages and prices with some sign saying final price is some percentage of that. You can wheel and deal for lots of stuff, especially if buying all in stock at the time. Only way to do business.

I got 800 square feet of a super nice vinyl solid siding, I've never seen used anywhere before. Probably industrial product for $30. Same with windows, can get first rate vinyl replacements for squat, problem being getting enough matching ones in the right size to do an entire house. Some surplus stores will have enough, they are the outlet for a particular manufacturer to dump product they have no immediate sales for, or returns or cancelled contracts or whatever.

I would be wary of a chain store operating in a lot of states. Especially if it doesn't have a sort of flea market type atmosphere. Just about all real surplus stores do.

Lots of those stores might be junk shops that import super low quality stuff targeted at a particular type buyer. Junk is junk, you have to be able to recognize it. Fair number of those type stores about. Sort of a very low grade K-Mart's selling even more questionable goods. Their supplier chains are just like any other big box store, manfactured to their specs.