Excess Electronic Components: How to Sell Your Inventory and Optimize Inventory Management

A warehouse should not resemble a museum of ancient relics. Warehouse space should be highly organized with just enough electronic components to fulfill the current production cycle. Excess electronic components can quickly grow from a small pile to a mountainous hoard, eating up valuable floor space and wasting thousands of dollars as they depreciate.

Electronic manufacturing leaders who find themselves tripping over dusty heaps of excess parts must evaluate their current practices and make changes to eliminate bulging inventories and find methods to sell unneeded parts.

Why Does Excess Inventory Happen?

Excess component inventory occurs for various reasons. It could be that the market shifted drastically, and demand plummeted. Or it could be due to unpredictable lead times, inventory mismanagement, or inaccurate market predictions.

While some of these factors seem beyond anyone’s control, excellent market intelligence can forecast supply chain movements. Take the semiconductor shortage, for instance. Now that semiconductor stock is stabilizing, many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have been left with far too much supply. This is a direct result of a quick drop in ravenous semiconductor demand from a host of macroeconomic pressures. After months of double-ordering stock, the electronics industry is drowning in the same surplus that was supposed to save it.

Why Should You Limit Excess Components?

One of the biggest reasons manufacturers should limit the occurrences of excess electronic component inventory is lost capital. It is financially unwise to consistently buy too much stock and not use it. Costs stemming from leasing additional warehouse space to store unused parts and from buying parts that never see the light of day quickly add up.  

There are very few electronic components that have a lengthy shelf life. The longer electronic components sit, the more their value depreciates. Component obsolescence is another reason not to keep piles of parts sitting for months or years. Technology is constantly evolving, meaning new and improved models replace their predecessors. Once a part becomes obsolete, there is only a relatively small amount of buyers that will be willing to purchase your obsolete components.  

Finally, the environmental impact of e-waste is staggering. The Global E-waste Monitor – a report sponsored in part by the World Health Organization – estimates that the world generated 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste in 2019. It’s environmentally irresponsible to overbuy component parts because many of them end up in landfills and improper recycling emits toxic substances.  

How Can You Get Rid of Excess Electronic Components?

The best way to purge warehouses of unused stock is through reselling. There are thousands of buyers all over the world seeking good-quality parts, and reselling is a sustainable and wallet-friendly way to offload extra stock.

Sourcengine, one of the largest e-commerce sites for electronic components, makes selling your excess electronic component inventory easy. The only tasks you’re responsible for are uploading the parts list you’d like to sell and determining the price at which you’d like to sell it. Sourcengine takes it from there, putting your excess electronic component inventory in front of highly interested buyers, and handling the quality assurance, shipping, and billing logistics when you make a sale.

How Do You Break the Habit of Overbuying Component Parts?

Market monitoring is the best way to limit the amount of product or component parts you have at any one time. These methods may also save you significant funds at the same time. The predictive analytics involved in market monitoring give manufacturing leaders a clear idea of how much product is available, thus eliminating panic buying or double ordering.

Datalynq is a market intelligence tool that uses predictive analytics based on real market transactions to alert decision-makers to supply chain slowdowns, component risks, and inventory updates that could affect their current operations. Datalynq also provides visibility into pricing, so you can be sure that you’re getting the right part at its optimal price.

Reach out to Sourcengine today for advice and action on how to address your excess inventory needs.