SHELBY, Ohio – Downtown Shelby has a new resource for electronics with the opening of ESL Surplus on East Main Street.
The electronics store boasts a wide selection of inventory, from computer systems to phone accessories, video and audio adapters and televisions. It’s the latest downtown business venture for owner Ken Niese, a Shelby native with a passion for everything electronic.
“Electronics has always been in my blood,” said Niese. “I run around with a bunch of friends that are all electronic specialists, so we kind of run this together.”
Niese explained ESL Surplus began as a small-scale hobby, selling electronics at the Hamfest & Computer Show in Mansfield once a year for the past eight years. In the spring of 2014 the company started branching out to hamfests and electronic conventions all over the state of Ohio. It wasn’t until earlier this year that the idea of a storefront came about.
“Our inventory was getting so big in our warehouse that we decided it was maybe time to open a store,” said Niese. “A lot of people at the hamfest were requesting that we have a store. We were selling on eBay but we decided to open a store.”
Being a surplus store, Niese said ESL Surplus obtains its new, overstocked and returned inventory from other electronic stores, and does not work directly with any dealers. When RadioShack declared bankruptcy in February, Niese said ESL Surplus acquired a lot of merchandise from local stores forced to close.
“The stuff that is new we price and put back out, the stuff that’s been returned goes through our two service centers,” said Niese. “The stuff that is good comes into the store and is sold, the stuff that is used we recycle down – we try to recycle at least 90 percent of our inventory that isn’t good. We don’t want to fill landfills.”
The merchandise sold at ESL Surplus is priced at roughly 50 to 60 percent below the retail mark. Items found in store include HDMI cables, video cables, network equipment, server racks, hard drives, desktop computers, laptops, mice and keyboards, TV and monitor mounts, and much more.
ESL Surplus held its official grand opening on July 8, making it the first electronics store Shelby has seen since 2007, according to Niese. In addition to the cost of business being more reasonable in Shelby, Niese said he enjoys working with local people.
“I like to work with Shelby people, they’ve always been good to us,” he said. “We’ve had a good share of customers and had some positive feedback, everybody likes the prices. We keep hearing people say Shelby needed something like this.”
In the future, ESL Surplus will also offer computer repairs to customers in the near future. Niese expects to outgrow his current store front in about six to eight months, based on the store’s steady collection of inventory. He eventually hopes to move to a building near Glen’s Surplus downtown, to create a “surplus district” of Shelby.
“Our plans are to keep growing but we’re not going to leave Shelby,” he said.
ESL Surplus is open Monday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. They are located at 36 E. Main St. in Shelby.
“Electronics has always been in my blood,” said Niese. “I run around with a bunch of friends that are all electronic specialists, so we kind of run this together.”
