Synnex is poised to enter the used and refurbished products market for the first time with its deal to buy distributor PC Wholesale from direct marketer Insight Enterprises.
"As [the computer business] matures, the used equipment market continues to grow," said Peter Larocque, president of U.S. distribution at Synnex. "We're always looking at the opportunity to find incremental business products."
The Fremont, Calif.-based distributor has historically focused on sales of new products and services but believes the used and refurbished business can be complementary, even though the two models call for different selling techniques, according to Larocque.
"[Success in the used products business] requires people who can procure products correctly and who know what they're doing," he said. "It also requires a group of folks who how know how to sell those things and have the focus to do these things. It sounds like anybody can do it until you try it."
Synnex said that with the PC Wholesale deal, expected to close early this month, it now has the largest non-new products business among broadline distributors, providing more differentiation from competitors Ingram Micro and Tech Data. PC Wholesale had about $224 million in sales last year.
"We think we got a real good business here, we've got people who are very capable in running it and we think we'll do very well at it," Larocque said. "We feel very good about our positioning here. It's a new market. We've gotten some new customers, and we always feel good about that as well."
Synnex's vendor partners are intrigued by the distributor's new capability to sell new and refurbished gear, according to Larocque. "A lot of our suppliers are asking a lot of questions already, like what do we need to do to use this PC Wholesale division to move some of our refurbished goods?" he said.
End users have expressed interest in refurbished printers and networking equipment, but for the most part they want new desktop and laptop PCs, said Brandon Cholus of Digitek Networks, a Louisville, Kent.-based solution provider.
Whether that translates into additional sales is not yet known, according to Cholus. "It's going to come down to requests from end users about how much in the way of refurbished equipment they want," he said.
