Saturday's 4-hour state surplus sale expected to be ‘Black Friday on steroids’
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Last December Ron Turner watched as eager shoppers crawled under the roll-up garage doors as they opened at 8 a.m. at the State of Michigan’s Surplus Store.
The twice-annual sale lasts four hours, and people start lining up outside the warehouse on West St. Joseph Street two hours before it starts.
Saturday the state's surplus store will hold its second and final sale of 2018, from 8 a.m. to noon.
Turner, the store's supervisor, said the sale is expected to be one of the largest the state has organized, both in size and scope.
Hundreds of people are expected to show up looking for a good deal on everything from high-end sunglasses to flat-screen televisions.
“We like to call it Black Friday on steroids," he said. "The gate will open out here at 8 a.m. and you’ll have people running. We can’t get that door open fast enough.”
From sunglasses to TVs and computers
The state's Surplus Store offers thousands of items — a mix of property seized by police and voluntarily surrendered at airports, surplus property from local public colleges and property no longer needed by government agencies.
"It looks like a large garage sale," said Caleb Buhs, director of communications for the state's Department of Technology, Management and Budget.
Shoppers will find sunglasses, phones, charging cords and wireless headphones. They'll also find state office equipment and furniture, laptop and desktop computers, and a large array of tools, jewelry and watches.
The sale will include 150 new tires for trucks and sport utility vehicles, sold by the set, and while shoppers won’t find vehicles at the surplus store — those sales are offered online throughout the year — there is a drone and a new generator among the inventory.
Other items for sale were confiscated by Michigan State Police or the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
There are blue tooth speakers, headphones, a Roomba robotic vacuum, other vacuums and seven new flat-screen televisions, still in their original boxes.
Repeat customers know where to look for certain items, Turner said, because every sale is set similarly.
“They grab and go,” Turner said. Smaller electronic items, like sets of new wireless headphones spread out on a table, will likely be sold within the first half hour of the sale, he said.
And while the state's advertises the surplus sale itself, those who organize it don't share pricing beforehand.
That mystery is part of the sale’s appeal, Turner said. Staff research items they’re selling, and often end up pricing each at a 40% to 50% discount, he said.
“There have been times where our pricing isn’t complete until the day before the store (sale),” he said. “We are still pricing items as we speak. We go as low as 50 cents for an item.”
Nothing comes with a warranty and sales are final, Turner said. Shoppers can use cash or credit cards to pay for their purchases, but no personal checks are accepted.
“You buy it, you own it,” he said. “We have a zero-return policy on everything that is bought here.”
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