Identical wins

Posted on 19 May 2008 at 10:50

 

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There are a few things you're less likely to find. Products that sell for very low prices don't make so much sense as refurbs; if it costs £30 new, you probably wouldn't bother with a refurb at £25, nor would it be worthwhile for someone to turn it around. And some types of goods can be tricky to resell after customers return them, as Morgan's Tom Willett explains. 'Take a printer that sells for £40 new. Maybe you could sell it for £25 refurbished. But nobody will have checked that all the inks were returned intact. You'd have to install £17 of ink before you could put it on sale.'

Nevertheless, there's an exception to every rule. With end-of-line and surplus equipment complementing refurbs, the Morgan website is full of pocket money bargains and indeed a good few printers - from DECT answerphones under a tenner to network colour lasers for less than £100 including VAT.

How low can they go?

Could the falling price of PCs upset the economics of refurbishing? Now that you can pick up a brand new system for less than ever before, alternatives might start to look less enticing. Yet the opposite seems to be happening: more and better nearly-new deals are becoming available all the time.

Refurb will always have the edge, reckons Noel Fox at cheap-it.com. 'So far in 2008, we've seen a drop in IT retail sales, and as a result certain large online stores are willing to sell at little more than cost price, just for the sake of turnover. But we've seen this before in the US, and the refurbished and reconditioned market has still flourished. The obvious reason is the quality of the products.'

Noel's company sells large numbers of 'ex corporate' laptops, which have been used for only a few months by white collar employees before being replaced as a matter of routine. Fully refurbished, they're a distinctively different proposition to brand new machines at similar prices. 'Budget PCs will often use a low quality combination of chips and boards. They're the first components hit by cost-cutting, and the ones you can't upgrade.'

Rather than being built down to a price, machines sold to corporate buyers are typically made to superior standards, with a higher original sale price paying for a better quality of hardware. The result is that for the same money as a new low-end budget system, consumers can get a business grade PC that's built to last. Rather than just being calculated to look good on paper, the specifications of these systems are also likely to reflect the technical awareness of the IT managers they're designed to impress.

'They'll have done their homework before buying,' says Noel. And now that we've introduced you to the ins and outs of the refurb market, so can you. Happy shopping.

Author: Adam Banks