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Penn State Sells Surplus on e-Bay
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- With five cuts to its state appropriation in the past three years, Penn State University is turning to e-Bay to get the most out of high-tech, specialized items that it no longer needs.In 2003, the university's salvage and surplus department raised $93,000 selling outdated equipment on the Internet auction service. About 90% of that money goes back to the departments where the items originated, officials say. The rest of the money goes to fees for e-Bay and to Salvage for processing the items.Among the 115 items that have crossed the virtual auction block are lab glass and related items, scientific equipment, cameras and lenses, wrestling mats, pipe organs, pianos from The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, outdated ice cream machines from the Creamery, and a 15-section radio receiver tower from WPSU.Other universities using e-Bay sales programs include Oregon State, Michigan State and Iowa State."I think it's an absolutely wonderful choice (for salvage) because it exploits precisely what e-Bay does so well," says Gary Bolton, professor of business economics and director of the Laboratory for Economic Management and Auctions. "They create a much larger market that permits them to recycle stuff. They extend the pool of market participants."The online auction service is "changing buying habits very rapidly, particularly for people in a town like State College," Bolton says. "They're limited where they can buy from. Now they reach out and trade with people all over the country. That's a great thing in that it increases the economy through more beneficial trade."Given that research expenditures at the university are upwards of a half billion dollars, many of the obsolete, outdated and excess items reaching the salvage and surplus warehouse are of a scientific nature. "Institutions such as Penn State don't just teach students about the space program, we have students building rocket payloads," says Thomas V. Gibson, associate vice president of the Auxiliary and Business Services. "In an atmosphere like this, there are going to be some unique things no longer needed by Penn State that are considered valuable to a number of other people around the world."e-Bay has opened up a global market for their specialized items, adds Willard Gallaher, manager of Salvage and Surplus. "You can only sell so much in Centre County," he says. "This has helped us with the oddball stuff. We have a market that we could never reach without e-Bay."Take the world globe on a wooden stand that turned up one day at the warehouse, for instance. "For a lark, we put it on e-Bay," Gallaher says. "We would have been thrilled with $400 to $600 for it. We thought someone would probably buy it, throw away the globe and use the stand for a coffee table."When the auction closed, the globe was sold for $11,600 to a museum in the Netherlands. The buyer paid an extra $1,300 for a professional shipper to send it Baltimore and put it on a cargo vessel.The Department of Music sent up an old Moog synthesizer that Gallaher had his doubts about, "But they felt it had some worth," he said. "Some outfit in California paid $18,000 for it. In the past, it would have went out in the junk."Penn State, which has a student body of 83,000, got into the Internet auction business in 2001 at the behest of Jim Dunlop, director of procurement services. Dunlop had read about Oregon State's successful e-Bay program. "It's been a good program for us," Dunlop said. "We've turned it from a local and regional market into a worldwide market for that stuff."Pam Coffman is in charge of the university's e-Bay program. She estimates that she spends at least 20 hours a week working on the program logistics -- meeting with clients and contact people, writing sales descriptions, getting reserve estimates, posting photos online and managing the incoming inquiries. The program started on a trial-and-error basis, but Coffman said they knew it was going to be a success when they sold a Steinway piano for $21,000.Coffman placed an e-Bay logo and link on the salvage department's Web site to help publicize the program. In the past few weeks, the site has advertised an array of microscopes, tools and cameras. Most recently, the site advertised a Micro-Pen Precision Writing System complete with software and accessories. Starting bid: $60,000.The salvage department has branched out with the program and has begun selling used laboratory equipment on LabX, an online auction house in Canada aimed at the scientific community. The university has received inquiries from other colleges interested in Penn State's program, and Gallaher envisions a day when selling surplus on e-Bay would be a Penn State employee's full-time job. Coffman plans to attend a conference on e-Bay business techniques this month in New Orleans.The program is not without its limitations. The salvage department works closely with the university's legal department to make sure liability issues for loading and handling are covered as well as observing U.S. trade embargoes on various nations. It also has to get an OK from the campus Department of Environmental Health and Safety to sell items such as lasers and medical equipment.A global market has forced the department to become more knowledgeable about the items they sell. Staffers have had to spend more time researching an item's value before they write a reserve price for bidders. Gallaher says some of the research is done online and some through manufacturer's resale estimates.e-Bay's expanded market has had a recycling benefit as well enabling the department to sell items that in the past would have been a disposal problem. "Some of the items, especially electronics, would have gone into the landfill or been sold at a fraction of their worth," Gallaher says.In the past 14 years, various Penn State recycling programs saved about $2.15 million based on tipping fees for materials not being landfilled, according to Al Matyasovsky, supervisor of labor and equipment in the Office of Physical Plant.Visit Penn State University: www.psu.edu"