TUCKER, Ga. -- Ripping open one of four waist-high cardboard boxes on a cargo bay here, Steve Ekin pulled out corkscrews, pocketknives and assorted hand tools before finding an electric impact drill as long as his arm. "You'd think people would know better," he said.

The original price tag, still on the drill, read $170. Mr. Ekin planned to sell it for about $15 at a store opened last October in a warehouse district northeast of Atlanta. He's the director of Georgia's Surplus Property Division, the agency in charge of selling...