Every lab move, line upgrade, and facility closure strands good equipment — instruments that cost tens of thousands, now occupying storage that costs money. Recovering value from surplus is a solved problem, but the difference between a fair outcome and a poor one is knowing how the channel works. Here is the honest sell-side guide, from a company that buys.
Step 1: Know what you have — it takes an hour
- Photograph nameplates: model, order code, serial. The order code is what determines value, not the family name — a fully-optioned unit and a base unit look identical from across the room.
- Record condition honestly: working when decommissioned, unknown, or faulty — and whether accessories, cables, software licences, and manuals are present. Completeness moves prices significantly.
- Note the removal context: still installed and demonstrable, or on a pallet? Equipment demonstrated working sells for meaningfully more.
Step 2: Understand the three selling channels
- Sell to a dealer/refurbisher (fastest). One transaction, immediate payment, they handle testing, marketing, warranty risk, and freight. The price reflects that — dealers buy at a discount to end-user prices because they carry the risk and the work. Right choice when you value speed, a single counterparty, and zero after-sale exposure.
- Consignment / auction platforms (middle). Broader exposure, potentially better prices, but weeks-to-months timescales, fees, and no guarantee of sale. Right for high-value niche instruments with a global but thin buyer pool.
- Sell directly to end users (highest price, highest effort). You become the dealer: listings, buyer questions, payment risk, export paperwork, packaging, freight claims. Realistic only if someone in-house genuinely has the time and the shipping competence — improvised packaging is where direct sales die.
Step 3: Protect yourself in the transaction
- Payment before goods leave, or escrow — no exceptions for new counterparties, regardless of how professional the email domain looks.
- Written agreement on who bears transit risk and who arranges freight; for cross-border sales, name the Incoterms rule explicitly.
- Decontamination documentation for anything that touched chemistry or biology — reputable buyers will ask; be suspicious of ones that do not.
- Data and configuration hygiene: wipe methods, sample data, and network credentials from instrument PCs and controllers before handover.
- Export awareness: some analytical and vacuum equipment falls under dual-use rules — a legitimate buyer will handle compliance transparently; a buyer pressing you to mis-describe goods is a buyer to drop.
What determines the price you will be offered
Model demand and installed base (common models sell; orphans do not), completeness, demonstrated condition, remaining manufacturer support, and — more than sellers expect — logistics: a chiller on the ground floor by a loading dock is worth more than the same chiller in a third-floor lab with no lift. Realistic expectations help too: a working, complete, in-demand instrument typically recovers a meaningful fraction of its replacement cost; incomplete or unknown-condition items trade at parts value. An honest buyer will explain which category yours falls into and why.
PLC North buys surplus laboratory and automation equipment across the EU — single instruments to full lab clearances. Send photos of nameplates and a one-line condition note; you will get a fair, explained offer within days, payment before collection, and freight handled by us. Start an asset recovery assessment to get a valuation.