Sell or Ship Test Strips from North Dakota — Find a Buyer

Step one: pull out what cannot be sold at all

Start by subtracting rather than counting. Anything with a broken seal comes out first. Factory-sealed, unopened, original manufacturer's packaging is the standard, and an opened box has no value at any tier because nobody downstream can verify how it was handled. This is the most common single reason a parcel is refused, and it is entirely avoidable at the kitchen table.

Next, anything obtained through a government-covered program. Supplies paid for that way cannot be resold, and no amount of good condition changes that. A pharmacy label with your own name printed on it is not a problem and never has been — the question is about which plan paid, not whose name is on the box.

Then FreeStyle Libre sensors bought outside the United States. US retail versions only, and this catches out more people than you would expect. If the packaging is not the American version, it comes out of the pile.

Lastly, test strips with less than six months before expiry. They are not disqualified outright, but the value falls away sharply below that mark because whoever uses them next needs time to work through the box.

Step two: put two things back

This is the step that pays for the rest of the page. The most widely read guide on selling diabetic supplies tells its readers that expired stock has very low or no resale value, and a great many people have binned perfectly saleable items on that sentence.

It is correct about test strips. A degraded strip can give an inaccurate reading, and an inaccurate glucose reading is a safety problem rather than a bargain, so expired strips belong in the bin regardless of brand.

It is wrong about Omnipod pods and wrong about Dexcom G7 sensors. Expired Omnipod 5, DASH and Classic pods retain value. Expired Dexcom G7 sensors retain value. Both pay at a reduced rate, but a reduced rate is not nothing, and pods in particular are the item most often thrown away by someone who has just read that they are worthless.

Expired Dexcom G6 sensors are not in the exception. Neither is anything else. Two items go back on the table, and the rest of the expired pile stays where it is.

Step three: describe what is left, then get a figure for it

Now count what survived. Brand, product, box count and the expiry date on each. Count is worth attention rather than a rough total: a 100-count box is worth meaningfully more than two 50-count boxes of the same brand, so a list that says "about four hundred strips" is less useful than one that says how they are packaged.

You do not need to separate brands or supply types for shipping. A mixed lot is quoted as one lot rather than item by item, and quantity works in your favour — ten or more boxes earns a better per-box rate than the same boxes dribbled out over several months. If more is likely to accumulate soon, waiting is often the better call from a state where every parcel is a long journey.

With that list, get an actual number in writing before anything moves. The figure for what you specifically have, not a range and not an "up to". A buyer who will not commit before the parcel leaves Bismarck intends to revise the number once it has arrived, and by then it is 600 miles away and the conversation has changed.

Step four: photograph it, pack it, post it

Photograph each sealed box with the expiry date and lot number visible, then the packed parcel before it is closed. Keep those images until the payment has landed. Most shipments are uneventful, but if one is not, photographs of the boxes as they left are the only version of events anybody can check afterwards.

Do not open a box to photograph its contents. Opening it destroys precisely the thing that gave it value, and it is a surprisingly common instinct in someone trying to be thorough.

The label is prepaid and costs you nothing from any ZIP code in the state. If a buyer asks you to pay postage on a sale like this, that is a signal on its own and worth acting on.

Payment follows within 24 hours of the parcel being received and verified. Verification means someone has checked the boxes against your description. If the figure changes at that point, ask for the specific cause and for photographs of what arrived — a broken seal, a misread date, a count that differs from your list are all concrete and checkable. A vague reduction is not, and you can ask for the supplies back instead.

What North Dakota's numbers actually say

About 9.8% of North Dakotan adults have diagnosed diabetes on the CDC's 2023 BRFSS estimates, comfortably below the national 12.1%, with 17.5% of the population aged 65 or over and just 7.3% of working-age adults uninsured.

The state is also flat. Jamestown reads 10.8% and West Fargo 7.3% — a 3.5-point spread between the highest and lowest cities, where many states run to eight or ten points between a struggling city and a wealthy suburb. Fargo is 8.1%, Bismarck 9.4%, Grand Forks 8.9%, Minot 8.7%, Wahpeton 10.6%.

A low rate, a small population and no concentrated pocket of demand together explain why no buyer has ever set up here. It is a commercial fact rather than an oversight, and it is why the honest advice from North Dakota is a well-prepared parcel rather than a drive to somewhere that does not exist.