2nd hand prices:Ebay/Marketplace, etc, not much cheaper for PC components/elect goods, than new!etc.

Articulate25

I think its now often better to buy many PC and many electronic item newon Amazon, etc, than FB marketplace, but especially Ebay, case in point:

,I want to buy 16gb of DDR4 3600 Corsair  Vengeance, its 37.99 on Amazon , on E bay used its about 30, no provenance etc, SSD's are the same, Roku sticks the same. In many cases like the SSD, you save mayhbe a tenner for a drive that could be five years old 

its crazy. There seem to be something happened in the last five years, people seem to want the same price they paid for things, etc

I have done some resarch on this and am sending it to a charity that looks into COL, etc

 I used to love my bargains in the past on these sites

se2020

Ebay fees for sellers and the cost of posting items has increased a lot over the last few years 

If I sell some ram for £30 on ebay I will only actually receive about £20

Unfortunately there are also so many buyers who will mess sellers around that the cost of false returns and 'lost/damaged' items needs to be taken into account even if you are a low volume private seller.
Not to mention the buyers who expect next day delivery for free..

10yrs ago I was happy to list stuff on ebay for far less than I paid for it 
Now, Basically unless I am going to get at least £20 it's just not worth the potential problems. 

Much the same with marketplace,  buyers who promise to pay or collect and never actually pay or collect.  
I just can't face dealing with it anymore so I just give the low value stuff to a mate who does car boot sales. 
Fewer sellers like me means the bargains dissappear 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If you aren't in a rush best bet is to set up saved searches, chances are you'll get an auction or cheap BIN at some point. 

One thing I'm after is usually £20 but someone listed one for £1.99 a few months back, sadly I was too slow for that, but yes people do sometimes pay over the odds, auction I was watching yesterday finished for more second hand than new on Amazon. 

Perhaps the whole eco friendly idea of buying second hand is pushing up prices somewhat? 

ballisticbrian

Even Amazon, mobile phone prices very similar to the high street. Sometimes though, it's worth paying a few quid more to get locally. I just bought a Moto G14 for £10 more than Amazon. I'm not an Amazon subscriber and normally buy "sold and supplied by Amazon" to get free postage over £20. But then on this occasion worked out with the postage £10 difference. Then I started reading the reviews that the Amazon one came with a Euro plug instead on a UK plug, and I thought "you know what", I'll just buy it at Argos and go and pick up the UK version and on the plus side, if there's any issues, you can just drop back in there.

soolin

ballisticbrian said:

Even Amazon, mobile phone prices very similar to the high street. Sometimes though, it's worth paying a few quid more to get locally. I just bought a Moto G14 for £10 more than Amazon. I'm not an Amazon subscriber and normally buy "sold and supplied by Amazon" to get free postage over £20. But then on this occasion worked out with the postage £10 difference. Then I started reading the reviews that the Amazon one came with a Euro plug instead on a UK plug, and I thought "you know what", I'll just buy it at Argos and go and pick up the UK version and on the plus side, if there's any issues, you can just drop back in there.

I agree, with some items it is often better to opt for somewhere you can talk to - rather than go straight to the cheapest option.

I used to love Maplin, we had one that I could walk to - I'd see a gizmo advertised , perhaps a fancy add on bit of tech for my PC and I'd go round there, explain what i wanted and they would sell me the part- and the best thing is if it didn't fit how I expected- they took it back. I bought lots of stuff in there, perhaps I paid a small percentage more, but I could compare items, ask to see how things were fitted and ask specific advice about what I wanted it to do.

forgotmyname

Maplins were almost competitive when they had 50% off sales, but occasionally they would have items at massive discounts
and you needed to be quick and stock up.

Sometimes you need a part quickly and I had several within a 30 minute drive.


The bargains are out there if you know what your looking for.  You know what brand of chips are on that memory don't you? 
You can get the same product for less.

Certain devices get sold cheaply on ebay with parts inside that cost more than the entire device if bought standalone.

FFHillbilly

I notice there are a lot of things on ebay that are cheaper elsewhere, yet they still sell on ebay all for above market value all the time. I guess it's the convenience of buying on ebay that makes buyers lazy, yes they could search the web to see if it's cheaper elsewhere, but then theres the obstacle of signing up to yet another website, verifying yourself, entering card details, probably having to do a visa/mastercard check...
if you compare that to just seeing it on ebay and clicking "buy it now" and then "pay" in around 2 seconds, maybe if the price difference is only £10 people seem to think it's worth £10 for the time saving.
sometimes when shopping around online I get frustrated by the lack of postage cost info and the item description on the site being very generic, i.e they sell the item you want in a variety of sizes and colours and you never really know what you are going to get. 
if you compare that to ebay, you can see the p&p charge straight away so you don't have to sign up and get to the last stage of the checkout process before you realise the p&p is extortionate, and regarding the item specifics, there are loads of item specifics and even actual pictures of the item so it's much easier to see what you are buying 

forgotmyname

I find the opposite also applies, currently looking for a controller module which comes with many specifications.

Fairly specialised so limited sellers and trawling through the sellers on ebay that put the entire code which
decodes the actual spec.  I would much rather find the postage costs than trawl through many listings
that do not state the actual specification.