The Cisco Secondary Market is vast and can be difficult to navigate. Many buyers who venture into the world of pre-owned network hardware are aware of the secondary market’s counterfeit equipment issue and do their best to avoid purchasing counterfeit equipment. However, the majority of IT buyers have no knowledge of the ghosting inventory problem that plagues the secondary market. Most have never even heard the term Ghost or Ghosting Inventory. But I assure you, it is real and it is defiantly a big problem.
So what is ghosting inventory?
To put it simply, the act of ghosting inventory is when one network equipment dealer claims to have inventory in stock that they 
do not actually have. Dealers who practice ghosting, mirror the inventory of other secondary market equipment dealers and present it as their own. Copying another reseller’s inventory is easy enough, due to the fact that most network equipment resellers have access to each other’s inventory, for purchasing purposes of course. It’s basically the equivalent of copying someone else’s project. But why would an equipment broker do this? The answer is a little tricky.
The basic idea is to sell the equipment to their customers and buy it from the dealer who really has it in stock. While it makes sense for an equipment dealer to want to advertise as many different Cisco routers or PoE switches as possible, it often times causes a number of problems for both other dealers and end users alike.
There are a number of network equipment dealers who do not practice ghosting. Most of which, are members of organizations like UNEDA who uphold a strict code of ethics. Dealers who are not part of the United Network Equipment Dealers Association or other organizations like it, do not have to follow these codes of ethics and will often times ghost the inventory of the dealers who actually have it.
Now I am not saying that a reputable network equipment dealer cannot, and will never sell something that they do not physically have in stock. All secondary market dealers receive requests from customers for specific Cisco equipment that they do not have in their inventory. In these cases, dealers will inform their customers that they will need to procure the particular requested item, followed by reaching out to other resellers to find the equipment. Now I know what you are thinking….How is that different? Firstly, the customer is made aware that the dealer must procure the equipment for them. Secondly, the dealer is not publicly stating that they equipment is in their inventory that they do not physically have.
When dealers ghost, the inventory that they are ghosting presents differently on the secondary IT equipment market. This means there will appear to be more of certain units on the market then their actually are, which will significantly alter the pricing and value of these units. To put this in perspective, imagine that you are looking to buy quantity 50 Cisco switches and you see that there are a number of dealers with quantity10 in stock. You assume that the switches that you need will be easy to find and leave you some room to negotiate on price. After contacting some of the resellers, you come to find that the pricing is way higher than you thought and only one dealer can ship them out to you today. You purchase the 10 that can ship to you today and suddenly all of the network equipment brokers that you were looking to buy from tell you that they are sold out. Clearly they were ghosting the one dealers inventory. Now what?
This scenario happens way too often and not just to customers. This often happens to secondary network equipment market Cisco dealers, like DNI, as well. Ghosting is an issue for everyone that really cannot be prevented. However, there are a few steps you can take to help safeguard yourself from becoming a victim of inventory ghosting.
