So I find myself in a bit of a quandry. I use to run an online maker-friendly supply shop in Spain. I have an inventory of several hundred pounds of sensors, shields, Raspberry Pi stuff, Adafruit and Sparkfun stock and misc stuff (connectors, pin headers, battery holders, etc). It’s like delivery trucks from Radio Shack, Adafruit, Sparkfun and a little bit of Alibaba all ran into each other and now I have this big pile (and I’m getting the stink-eye from my wife for all the ‘junk’).
I need to get rid of this stuff, and I have no stomach for setting up a formal shop for stuff I will never re-order, nor for shipping out tiny little individual items (over 400 unique inventory items). I only want to get about half retail value for them (less than my original cost), so this should be a good deal all around.
What do you think I should do? Grab bags? Make up kits of related stuff? Geeky garage sale? It’s such a mix, ranging from high-end untrasonics, breadboards, and RPi accessories, down to tens of thousands of LEDs, transistors, connectors and passives.
Maybe I could buy a pile of G30TH’s and make up meaningful kits? Maybe some kits with MCUs, some without?
My goal is to get rid of this in the fewest number of individual shipments as I can (because, really, who has time for that?)
Kits. Sensor kits, and common part kits. E.g. I purchased a kit with common surface mount parts once. What’s the value of the inventory? Perhaps you should do an Ebay auction of the whole lot.
It’s a little higher level than surface mount stuff - think of it more at the level of Arduino boards and shields and sensor breakouts for makers. There are leds and passives, but a lot more value in maker-friendly modules. The total value is probably $15K or more at retail.
It’s such an eclectic collection, I don’t think ebay would work. It’s unlikely anybody is looking for the entirety of this mix so I think I’d really lose my shirt there. Though maybe I could split it up into five or 10 lots. But that seems less fun overall. 
Now, if GHI would slip me a hundred or so G30TH’s on consignment, I could make up 10 different flavors of kits (e.g., G30TH + Ultrasonic + character LCD for an ultrasonic ruler; or G30 + PIR + bag of leds for a motion-controlled light). There’s something to be said for having everything you need for a weekend lark all in one bag, and it might spread some netmf love to new people.
It’s not really just about getting the money back - I still want to spread some fun with this.
Maybe contact Sparkfun and/or Adafruit as some sort of grab bag special for their classes they always have.
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I think I’d start by making an inventory list and offering a price for the whole lot. If that doesn’t work then maybe let people make up their own lot with some minimum price ($100?). You might get lucky and find someone else looking to setup the same type of shop. Adding more inventory (G30THs) seems like it would make things even harder and more risky. You might see about selling it through the MSFT makerspace, too.
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I think I would start by making up a mix of parts and selling grab bag boxes in 2 kilo lots by weight. Guarantee that there will be a semi even distribution of value, not just a chance of getting a box of all ceramic caps. Let people take their chances. If I got 2 kilos. I would scrape through the box for the stuff I wanted - and then I would sell or donate the left overs myself.
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@ mcalsyn - You probably already know about Adafruit’s AdaBox sale. Similar concept, sell boxes of mixed components.
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All great suggestions. I’ll think these over for a couple days and then put something together.
