Tips For Buying Used Restaurant Equipment
There are upsides and downsides to purchasing used restaurant equipment. The key is to weigh how much the purchase will save a restaurant owner in the long run.
Starting a restaurant isn’t cheap and one of the biggest pieces of the financial puzzle is going to be the cost of equipment. That’s why so many restaurant owners opt to buy used restaurant equipment as opposed to new.
From ovens and ranges to food service equipment and furniture, they can all cost a pretty penny new, and aren’t exactly cheap used, either – but they’re definitely less pricey. You also can’t exactly ignore the hidden costs of equipment maintenance. Depending on the size of your restaurant, you might experience daily grief with one piece or another of your restaurants furniture, hardware and equipment. For all these reasons, many restaurant owners turn to used restaurant equipment, thus saving a considerable amount on the preliminary set up.
Before you decide to purchase used equipment for your new restaurant, you should take a moment to really weigh both the upsides and the downsides of doing so.
The first true upside of choosing to buy used restaurant equipment is clearly the saving of your funds. You're going to save a whole lost of cash that you can in turn use for other important aspects of your business. One more upside to buying used restaurant equipment is the potential that it will be relatively used, thanks to the fact that most new restaurants fail within the first year. In fact, searching for a “going out of business” sale for a failed restaurant is often the easiest way to get top quality used restaurant equipment.
It would also be desirable to inquire about the equipment's history before buying it. If it’s really old, it’s probably not worth the asking price unless it’s free. The cost of repairing and maintaining some equipment can often exceed the cost of buying it new.
When buying new restaurant equipment, it’s tough to haggle over the price versus buying used restaurant equipment. If you have a charming partner or employee, or even a friend, you might want to consider sending them to a used restaurant equipment sale to do the bargaining. However, whether you’re buying new or used restaurant equipment, buying in bulk could increase your buying power. Sometimes, the act of buying out all of the equipment from a single vendor could lead to heavy discounting, and even some free stuff.
As for the disadvantages of buying the restaurant equipment used, first, you never know for certain how much time the devices will work properly. The used restaurant equipment likely also comes without any service from the manufacturer or the peace of mind that comes from a warranty. Ask yourself: is it worth the risk? Can you foresee having to spend more than the price of a new product on maintaining the used restaurant equipment you purchased for next to nothing?
Bottom line, purchasing used restaurant equipment is like living on borrowed time. So long as you approach any used restaurant equipment as a way of buying you time to save towards the purchase of new equipment that will last, you’re starting off on the right foot.
Article source: Contributed by RestaurantNewsResource.com, a global restaurant news distribution service.
