Never Accept First Trade-in Price

When upgrading network equipment, most Network Managers seek a trade-in on their old devices. There's absolutely no point in throwing away kit for which you could get a financial return, reducing the net cost of the upgrade. 

That's fairly obvious, but there's more to this than meets the eye. The key is to shop around. Never accept the first trade-in price you are offered for any piece of redundant network equipment. It's almost certain to be well below what that piece of kit could command. 

Several years ago, Go Communications had a customer who came to us periodically for devices that their incumbent supplier, a manufacturer, could not deliver quickly enough. They had reached the point where they needed to upgrade their network, in the process removing some 120 48-port VoIP-enabled switches. 

Their manufacturer offered them a trade-in of $200 per switch - around one twentieth of their purchase price some two-to-three years earlier. Understandably, the customer felt they should be able to do better, and approached us. 

We were able to offer them around $600 per switch - a total saving on the upgrade of almost $50,000 (around £30,000). We were able to do this as VoIP had recently become a key technology for many up and coming businesses, and there was a strong second-user market for these VoIP enabled switches. 

The manufacturer could not match our offer because selling second-user equipment is simply not their core business. This story illustrates three simple rules of network equipment trade-ins.

Firstly, always shop around. Secondly, never think you can second-guess the market. Thirdly, manufacturers are always likely to offer you a much lower price for your old hardware than dealers with orders to fulfil for those products. It's astonishing how many businesses throw away huge sums byfailing to follow these three rules.