About 6 months ago, our local paper started running ads in the Computers/Electronics section with the same local phone number, usually at least 2 ads and sometimes 5 or 6. It’s always practically-new computer equipment. Is he running some kind of scam, or is he just an enterprising businessman who’s found some kind of market niche?
Here’s a sample listing of the kinds of merchandise he’s offering.
*Athlon 1000MHZ 128MB 20GB HD CD Burner 19" monitor $1395
Compaq 475 MHZ 64MB Win98 $950
IBM ThinkPad 500MHZ 64MB Win98 $975
Compaq Pentium 233MHZ 64MB $650
IBM ThinkPad Pentium 166MHZ $500
Pentium III 500MHZ 64MB Win98 $495 *
Surely he’s not fencing stolen goods through a newspaper ad? Are they factory closeouts? Reconditioned? If they’re used machines, where’s he getting them? I thought you just threw a computer away when it no longer perked along as regularly as it ought to, like a microwave. Is he taking them as trade-ins? Why doesn’t he have a storefront?
It doesn’t cost that much to buy the parts and w/o a storefront to maintain, he can pass along the savings. That said, you have to be careful about quality control as he is probally using parts he can get a deal on. And like you pointed out they might be refirbs or used.
Some people donate old computers to us at the St. Vincent dePaul Society.
Nothing magic about it. Most come from people in the Masons or Rotary who are upgrading at work. They get a deduction, we get a donation, and something is reused. Nothing sinister in it. If they have any real value, they are easier to sell in the want ads than directly in the store.
The prices don’t seem suspiciously low to me. If you eliminate customer support you can lower the cost a lot. I once bought an IBM ThinkPad from a small shop that accepts cash only and accepts no returns even for defective products. It was a new computer with manufacturer’s warranty, and it cost about 20% less than the cheapest of the reputable mail-order stores.
Well, at the same time, that 233 seems rather high. I recently bought a refurbished 500MHz for $319, so that’s what I’m basing some of these prices on. The first one might seem a little low, but the rest seem to vary from medium to high depending. My guess is that if he was fenching, he’d sell them for cheaper than that. My guess is self-builts or closeouts.
They are most likely refurbs. But I’ll tell you this… some (not all) of those units are very well priced dealwise. He’s probably only making a 150. - 250. or so profit on each deal. There are easier ways to make a buck.
I wouldn’t expect much hand holding at those prices.
Umm… $1395 would be really cheap for a 1Mhz computer. I built an 8080A microcomputer from a kit in 1975, it had a clock speed of 1.5Mhz. The kit cost me $2000. The 16k RAM boards cost me $500 each.
Chas, you can’t tell anything from prices you paid in 1975–the prices have dropped drastically relative to what you’re getting. I bought a 20MB hard card for $500 in 1989, but the same money would buy me something like 40GB of storage space today.
Some of those prices look reasonable, some not so great (personally, I think the ThinkPad’s overpriced). I’ve seen enough people reselling that I wouldn’t worry about the legitimacy of the computers’ origins, although I wouldn’t expect much in terms of support. If the advertiser is making money, he’s not making much.
Here’s a point you may not have considered Duck Duck Goose:
Those quotes are for “systems” without a display. Add a
couple of hundred bucks for that plus another C-note for
a copy of Windows and you start to see ordinary prices.
I get ads for this kind of system all the time. I even put
them together (computers, not ads) for friends hereabouts.
I beat those prices easily because I can pick up parts at
close to wholesale. Of course, I can frequent one of the
most cutthroat computer parts shopping districts in the
world: Akihabara in Tokyo.
There are places in the States too where one can get all
the parts at low prices. Just don’t expect much in the
way of support or “after care”.
I build systems as a hobby. I provide the support and
expertise in exchange for dinner and a cup of coffee.
I even make house calls for a donut or a slice of cake.
I got a 800Mhz PIII with 256MB of RAM, a GeForce 3D card, SoundBlaster Live sound card, nice speakers, modem, network card, etc. for $1600 several months ago (when the 800 was the fastest thing on the market), and the guy who built it for me admitted he was getting a decent profit. It’s not unrealistic at all.
BTW, that was before RAM hit it’s current low prices. $1395 for a 1Ghz Athlon (quite a bit cheaper than equivelant Pentiums) with only 128 MB of RAM is not that good of a deal. I could probably have that computer built for under a grand.
A 1Ghz Athlon doesn’t use DIMMS, it uses some new stuff, RamBus memory, I think it’s called, its not cheap memory, but then it runs @ like 800mhz or something.
If you check http://www.pricewatch.com, you’ll see that the 1G Athlon is running at a ridiculously low $171, and PC 133 SDRAM is practically being given away. Heck, even that Rambus crap is under $150 right now. Here’s a quick spec-check for that 1G Athlon system:
CPU: $171
Heatsink/Fan: $20
Motherboard (generic): $45
128 MB RAM: $35
20 GB hard drive: $95
4x4x24 CD Burner: $83
19" Monitor: $202
Floppy, keyboard, mouse, case, power supply, and sundries: $200, tops
Total: approximately $850 (not including shipping). And that’s retail. If the fellow building these systems is thinking big and buying in volume, he stands to make out like a bandit.
Handy is thinking of the Pentium IV, which uses Rambus, while the new Athlon DDR boards are due to arrive soon. They use Double Data Rate memory, which is also currently pretty expensive, but which is expected to have more successful yields than Rambus currently enjoys. (It will also have lower latency and the support of the industry, but don’t get me started…)
Sorry, GuanoLad, but I for one am certain that Chas said what he meant: 1MHz clock speed and 16KB RAM boards. [geezing]We didn’t do 1GHz computers in 1975. We definitely didn’t do them for $2000.[/geezing]
