For IT resellers and MSPs

Most of the hardware we buy comes out of a refresh somebody else is running — a reseller supplying the new kit, an MSP doing the migration, or an IT support firm clearing a site at the end of a contract. The residual value of the old estate is an awkward line item in all three cases: real money, but not your core business, and not something you want to spend a fortnight on.

This page is about how that works.

We do not approach your client

This is the first thing anyone in your position wants to know, and it is a reasonable thing to be careful about. Handing a buyer your client's site address and asset list is an act of trust. We would rather say plainly what we will and won't do with it than let you find out afterwards.

If you would rather we did not appear at all — collection arranged through you, packaging unbranded, correspondence via your team — say so when you send the list and we will work to it.

A valuation you can put in front of your client

We price per unit, in writing, within one working day. That matters more in trade than it does retail, because you are usually not the one who decides.

A per-line written figure is something you can forward, quote against, or build into a wider proposal. A single lump-sum number for "the old estate" is not — it invites your client to wonder what the individual pieces were worth, and it puts you in the middle of a conversation you can't evidence.

What you do with the figure is your business. Some firms pass it through at cost as a goodwill line on the refresh quote. Some hold the margin. Some never mention it and take it as trade income. We price the hardware; the commercial arrangement with your client is yours.

How it works

The only real difference from a direct sale is scheduling. Refresh projects move, sites get rebooked, and the decommission date is rarely the one in the plan. Tell us the shape of the project and we will work around it rather than holding you to a slot.

Collection from a live site

Client sites have constraints that a warehouse doesn't: lift booking, security escort, a goods lift shared with the rest of the building, a window that closes at four. Tell us the constraints with the list and we will plan to them.

Practical things that make the day go well, in rough order of how often they get forgotten:

• Rails — the single most commonly forgotten item. If the machines are being de-racked, the rails come out with them.
• Caddies — if the client is keeping the drives, keep the caddies with the chassis. They carry real value in their own right.
• Both PSUs and the power leads, where they belong to the machine rather than the rack.
• Access details — who to ask for, where the loading bay is, whether there's a lift and what it will take.
• Who signs — the person on site is often not the person who agreed the sale.

What we buy

Whole servers and the components that come out of them — processors, memory, drives, networking and data centre GPUs. Storage arrays too, which are worth listing separately because they price as several things rather than one.

Two constraints worth knowing before you survey a site:

• It has to have been working when it came out of service. We buy hardware to sell on for continued use, so faulty, dead and untested kit is not something we take.
• Generation drives everything. If a client estate is old enough that you are unsure whether it is worth listing, send it anyway and we will tell you honestly rather than leaving you to guess.

Recurring work

Refresh cycles run to three or five years, which means the client whose estate you are clearing this quarter is a client you will be clearing again. If you tell us roughly when the next projects land, we can plan capacity around them instead of treating each one as a cold enquiry.

The same applies to your own stock: ex-demo units, kit that came back off a lease, hardware sitting in your stores from a job that changed scope. Send it on the same list.

What to send us

• The asset list — export, spreadsheet, or photos. Make and model with quantities is enough to start.
• Whose sale it is — you, or your client. It changes who we invoice and pay.
• Where it is — site postcode, and any access constraints.
• Roughly when — even "sometime in Q3" is useful.
• Whether the drives stay with the machines or are being kept back.

Payment is by bank transfer once the hardware is checked in against the agreed list, and we take identification for the selling party before releasing funds — the same as any purchase. If the seller is your client rather than you, tell us early so that runs smoothly on the day.

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