How often do you buy hardware from eBay?

[ThyManBearPig]

More specifically, I'm looking at video cards on ebay because they're cheaper than retail. Can I go wrong? Just looking at the peeps with a good amount of rep.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Have you checked pcpartpicker to see what vendors it spits out? Ebay isn't my thing. How much would you save? Did you factor in shipping? Warranty?

 

[ThyManBearPig]

Yea, like an r9 270 costs $130 on Newegg, then on eBay I could find one for around $105 including shipping. But no, I don't think about any warranty. Any good companies that have good warranty?

 

[Sheep221]

If you count the shipping and customs(if you are ordering from different country than seller), it's not really worth it. Ebay is good now mostly for cheap chinese junk a.k.a. data cables, phone covers, led lights and similar. Everything else is now price-wise available in stores near you or online retailers.

 

[knev]

ebay is not good place to buy any electronic hardware. Only old parts which are not available could be found here for good deal.

 

[rommelrommel]

Almost never, but I did get a good deal on a 670 after the 970's came out.

 

[OverVolt]

ebay? You mean the ibay? Is that some kind of apple market that sucks like itunes?

 

[DilipVasan]

I never trust ebay after I had a very bad experience with a sellur while I purchased SSD for my laptop

 

[ronbo613]

I've gotten some good deals on eBay, but some things are not worth buying. Internal computer components like hard drives, motherboards and video cards are some of the things I would not buy there. Spend the extra money and buy those components from a retailer with an immediate refund/return period(at least 14-30 days) and the best warranty you can get.

 

[inachu]

I never do ever since years ago I read reports of rip off artists.

 

[Muse]

I never do ever since years ago I read reports of rip off artists.

I've bought a ton of stuff on ebay. It's a whole different world from Amazon and almost all other online retailers. Ebay is NOT a retailer! It's kind of like a flea market in a lot of cases but some reputable companies, online companies set up stores there and post offers, either "Buy it Now" or expiring open-ended auctions. I've tended in recent years to go with the Buy it Now stuff, because auctions are kind of a PITA, sniping going on (last second bids, and I have engaged in that!) unless it's under the radar or not-very-sought-after stuff.

The thing about Ebay is that you have to have a second sense about things, be willing to take a close look at the listing, be willing to read feedback for the seller sometimes, weigh whether the savings you get over normal online retailers is worth it. Very very often it's nowhere near worth it (e.g. more expensive!). Sometimes it certainly is worth it. Many times things you can't find elsewhere (at least reasonably) can be found on Ebay. You have to be willing to get your imagination involved, it's a case by case basis. There's no customer service representative number you can call like Amazon if you have a problem (well, there is, don't don't expect Amazon level service!). Determine ahead of time if it's a go or not. Most sellers have return policies but I've only used one of those maybe once or twice if at all.

Nowadays, I don't even look at most listings that don't have Free Shipping. If the seller hides the shipping fee within the listing (you have to open the listing to find it if it doesn't say Free Shipping when you do your search), the deal probably isn't worth my time to look at.

As noted, some kinds of things you probably don't even want to consider looking for on Ebay. Often, though, something I check out on Amazon (or elsewhere) can be found for cheaper on Ebay, and if I'm not worried about warranty, bad-item issues, I'll go Ebay. The very great majority of the listings/sellers are on the up and up. I've seldom gotten burned, and never seriously.

I'm waiting right now for a couple of digital scales (1000g and 2000g capacity) that I ordered about a week ago on Ebay. I know they're good because I have 2 of the 1000g scales already. They are coming from Asia and the seller sent me an email explaining that I have to be patient for delivery (weeks!). I'm cool with that. A fair amount of the stuff now is slow delivery from Asia, you can tell in the listing. But cheap? Some of that stuff is incredibly cheap, you wonder how they can sell it so cheap, like from Asia for $1.

 

[master_shake_]

i've had really good luck on ebay for main components like memory motherboards and cpus

for video cards, check the bst thread.

 

[Sonikku]

Sometimes I see on fatwallet that Newegg is selling some samsung SSD's at a small discount or a Nintendo Wii U at $50 off or what not on their Newegg Ebay account. Why they have an ebay account and aren't just selling at that price on their website when they have a sale, I have no idea.

 

[Muse]

Sometimes I see on fatwallet that Newegg is selling some samsung SSD's at a small discount or a Nintendo Wii U at $50 off or what not on their Newegg Ebay account. Why they have an ebay account and aren't just selling at that price on their website when they have a sale, I have no idea.

It gives them extra exposure. Probably ebay gets a lot more customers than Newegg, obviously the product range is orders of magnitude greater. Newegg's been around a long time. I think their marketing strategies have stretched a ton since the late 1990's when I became aware of them.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

i've had really good luck on ebay for main components like memory motherboards and cpus

for video cards, check the bst thread.

Yeah, especially for older components. There are folks there who make their living buying old servers and corporate PC's and parting them out. If you want some 3-4 year old RAM or CPU to upgrade an older machine, eBay is always gonna be your best bet. (Aside from FS/FT of course! But selection is limited.)

I don't think I would ever buy a used SSD, HDD, or GPU from eBay. Too much to go wrong. Although I might buy a GPU if it's just some junk that I need to fill a slot in a cheap machine. Like a $30 midrange GPU that's 5-6 years old for an old machine for a family member.

In short, I trust eBay sellers who 1) are clearly doing this as a business, not selling their personally used goods; and 2) are selling substantially older components with low failure rates at very reasonable prices (usually under $50).

 

[Muse]

You have to be a little touchy feelie about ebay. A lot of times they are the only place I can think of to find a certain type of thing, and it often works, and I've gotten really good deals on things I really wanted and that I couldn't find anywhere else. For things that you can find elsewhere, often ebay is not a good choice. Very very often the prices you find on ebay suck compared to Amazon or others. At Amazon you can at least read some reviews (in most cases) and see what others' experiences have been, for what they are worth. On Ebay, they have some of that going on, but it's nowhere near as obvious and up front as at Amazon, where they parade reviews, which have the additional advantage of having an indefinite string of attached comments to each individual review. At ebay you can look at feedback and try to find the item you are interested in, but the feedback is limited to ~50 characters or something and is next to useless. I rarely leave ebay feedback anymore, just a waste of my time.

 

[sm625]

I wouldnt buy a newish graphics card on ebay. I buy older ones. Currently, a HD 6770 would be about the newest and richest I'd want to go imo. GPUs are about the last thign you want to be buying on ebay. When you buy a gpu, a large portion of the price you're paying is in the solder integrity of the BGA. And that is too hard to test and fails far too easily.

 

[Muse]

I wouldnt buy a newish graphics card on ebay. I buy older ones.

Can get good deals on ebay when the demand supply curve favors the buyer. For instance I loaded up on memory for my old HP4M+ printer, maxing it out. Used to be a workhorse network printer in the day, so the old parts are dirt cheap now. Same with components for my old laptops.

 

[schmuckley]

You'd be better off on the forums..
I buy hardware on the forums 5x more often than ebay.
Fer instance..there's a guy selling 40X 290x for $200 on OCN

 

[inachu]

The amount of fraud on ebay? I will never buy using ebay services.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Sometimes I see on fatwallet that Newegg is selling some samsung SSD's at a small discount or a Nintendo Wii U at $50 off or what not on their Newegg Ebay account. Why they have an ebay account and aren't just selling at that price on their website when they have a sale, I have no idea.

I think many of us ended up only ordering from new-egg back when we would go to price-watch regularly and nearly everything we were looking for was either the cheapest, or almost the cheapest, at new egg. I can see creating a similar market draw-in via ebay.