The 2nd Hand Graphics Market

TerrorFirmer

Has anyone else noticed how absolutely insane the 2nd hand market has become lately in terms of what sellers expect and demand? Honestly, I have 3 machines I was trying to buy cards for, and so far, 2 of them I've just bought new cards simply because I could get the cards brand new for a better price than the seller was willing to settle for! At the moment, I have a 7850 2GB, and I plan adding another for crossfire. So, I hit adverts....where I find sellers looking for 180+, and unwilling to budge at that. Considering I can get a brand new 2GB 7850 from Pix for 148...it just boggles the mind. The whole purpose of buying second hand is to save money on a new purchase, but this logic seems to have flown out the window lately. Check on adverts for prices on 6870's, 6850's, even 5850's - sellers expecting the price of a brand new and faster 7850, or often, even more! I've made offers on these cards based on the price of a new 7850 - an example being 100 for a 6870, and being told to get lost. I made an offer on a 2GB 7850, 120 euro - and was told 180 was the minimum (even though the same card new is 168). Finally, I made an offer on a 6950 on the basis that a 7870 2GB was just as fast and can be bought for as little as 170 on Pix, and was told that 7870's started at €250 and they were holding out for at least €180! Even trying to buy 2nd hand cards for older machines is a nightmare, with hugely inflated asking prices for older cards that are either only as fast as, or slightly slower than, brand new cards for less than the asking - but the sellers just don't want to know.

I'm honestly trying to buy a 2GB 7850 2nd hand yet I cannot find a single seller on this earth even willing to accept 10% below the brand new price, nor can I find a seller selling any older cards at an acceptable price: performance ratio with the 7850 as a basemark; my housemate's in the same boat and it's just driving us insane - we're being forced to buy 2 brand new cards which is just...baffling.

This seems to be a phenomenon affecting the video card market exclusively, as the prices of all other hardware seem realistic enough....it just didn't use to be this way, what's happened the past year or so?!

Tea_Bag

totally agree that the second hand market can be insane, but i blame it on adverts.ie.

as boards has grown exponentially, so has adverts. the introduction of merchant sellers has been the absolute downfall of it. merchants charge stupid money (though i doubt sell much/anything, they only pay a small listing fee and see it as advertising, if nothing else) and people see it as the benchmark price these things go for.

while i dont like to use ebay for buying electronics very often, the "Completed listings" search function can be a great indication of market value.

make friends with the people you buy from is the only way forward (in ireland) for the moment. a couple people here can vouch for me buying **** tons of stuff from them, and i always tell them first when im offloading gear so they get dibs. likewise, i get pm's all the time offering me stuff, though lately ive been very short of money


that said, ive taken advantage of adverts myself and sold several GPU's slightly above second hand market value. got lucky really. my 6990 fully paid for my second hand gtx690 for instance.

Tij da feen

Prices are crazy on adverts. Just a quick look there and there's someone who's selling a QX9650 with motherboard and 6GB 1600Mhz DDR3 and he's looking for €700 Won't take any realistic offers either because he spent so much in the first place.

I was looking for a second 6870 a few months back and couldn't find one for less than 140 or so excluding P+P and realistically I wasn't going to spend more than a 100 on it. All of the people on adverts seem to think that they'll get the same money back they spent on it in the first place.

Nolars

Tij da feen wrote: »

Prices are crazy on adverts. Just a quick look there and there's someone who's selling a QX9650 with motherboard and 6GB 1600Mhz DDR3 and he's looking for €700 Won't take any realistic offers either because he spent so much in the first place.

I was looking for a second 6870 a few months back and couldn't find one for less than 140 or so excluding P+P and realistically I wasn't going to spend more than a 100 on it. All of the people on adverts seem to think that they'll get the same money back they spent on it in the first place.

Most sellers are just chancing there arm i think.

wandatowell

Adverts as a whole can be a real joke at times.

Unless an item is very rare or in high demand then its a buyers market


Sellers putting things up on Adverts at crazy prices then get offended when people make reasonable offers.

I generally upgrade my components every 2 years or so. I know if I buy a graphics card for 300 quid and use it for 2 years getting huge millage out of it then Im very happy to sell it quickly and get cash for my latest build.

Serephucus

But then you have to look at it from the other side.

I put something on Adverts, say my 670, for €300. A reasonable enough price, maybe a little high to accommodate wiggle room. I'll get someone offering €150 off the bat, without even looking to see what the card is worth. I've considered posting something for (in this example) €500 just to see if someone will give me the €300 it's worth quickly.

So to combat this, you have to raise your asking price some, knowing that you're going to get quite a lot less than it, to even out to reasonable market price, but then you get people yelling that they can buy the card new for the same price!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

To play devils advocate here a buyer of second hand computer equipment is taking a risk. Sellers think of what they paid for the item and want a good return, buyers want 50% discount. Saving 50 euro over new price really isn't worth the risk. A 670 gtx can be had new for around 340 euro on amazon (sure you will get one cheaper), so at 300 it just isnt worth the bother. I know your open to offers but the law of haggle is high ball price, low ball offer.....annoying to and fro where everyone is insulted.

uncle_sam_ie

I just sold my GTX570 on adverts for 140 euros but the price I had at the start was 200. I reckoned if I got 200 great but, I was willing to go down to 150. I went with 140 in the end because, I met the guy and didn't need to post it. You need to put a high price on at the start to get the price you really want in the end. If I put 150 on it people would be likely offering me 100.

Serephucus

But that's what I mean. I'd put it on Adverts for €300, expecting somewhere in the region of €250, maybe €270 or something if I got lucky. The problem is that at that price, you don't get much offers over €200. It doesn't matter what the actual value of the item is, half the people on Adverts just refuse to pay more than 70% of an item's price, regardless of if it's fair or not, and the other half get pissed at you for jacking it too high, even if you're perfectly willing to accept lower offers.

SickBoy

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

But then you have to look at it from the other side.

I put something on Adverts, say my 670, for €300. A reasonable enough price, maybe a little high to accommodate wiggle room. I'll get someone offering €150 off the bat, without even looking to see what the card is worth. I've considered posting something for (in this example) €500 just to see if someone will give me the €300 it's worth quickly.

So to combat this, you have to raise your asking price some, knowing that you're going to get quite a lot less than it, to even out to reasonable market price, but then you get people yelling that they can buy the card new for the same price!

Cant really agree on this. Its like endless circle then.

When I was selling my gtx 570 i put the price, that I wanted to get for it, it was a realistic price. Got 4 people offering asking price and I think no one offered peanuts, used condoms or Lord of the rings 2 towers extended edition with 20 hours extra content...

If you Price it right, you dont need to play the shenanigans game. The real buyer will come in and buy it for asking price. When sellers start to play the "up the price to drop it", then the sellers start playing that game too.

Adverts is funny place though. Ill give you that. I am huge in to Lego, so I am checking adverts daily for good deals. Some of the sales there are freaking idiotic and then people get offended when you put the real value on it.

Serephucus

Point taken, but I think you put too much faith in a large portion of the Adverts community. No question that when someone who knows what they're talking about and who isn't trying to wring you for every last penny comes along, you can get a great deal, it's just I've found that not to be the case a lot of the time.

indough

people offering close to asking is most definitely not the norm, regardless of how realistically the item is priced. more often than not you will get ****ty low ball offers then have to put up with them acting put out simply because they feel entitled to buy the shirt off your back for the price of a half empty bag of gone off peanuts. then when you finally give in they will demand you deliver using carrier pigeon despite your specifying cash and collection only, and after all that you still somehow manage to get stung for paypal fees

joetoad

If your gaming PC case has a Load of shiny blue lights then you will get offers even if it has terrible specs. I think people think that shiny blue lights give the PC its gaming power.

If you have a very good PC priced the same as the bad PC above then you will get no offers because it has no blue lights.

ShadowHearth

Perfect example of adverts.ie in the nut shell:

http://www.adverts.ie/lego-building-toys/lego-death-star-set-10188-new-in-box/2891444

http://www.toys.ie/LEGO-Star-Wars-Death-Star-10188-!127340-prd.aspx

add 20% off with easters promotional 20% off, which ended 2 days ago.

Serephucus

I'll give you a counter example:

My 600T. Bought for €197, put on Adverts for €180 (expecting around €150). Bearing in mind that when it was put up it had only been used for about a week. Best offer I got was €110. Sure, I'll give you almost 50% off retail price for a basically new item just because I happened to buy it first.

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

I'll give you a counter example:

My 600T. Bought for €197, put on Adverts for €180 (expecting around €150). Bearing in mind that when it was put up it had only been used for about a week. Best offer I got was €110. Sure, I'll give you almost 50% off retail price for a basically new item just because I happened to buy it first.

Like it or not. It is already used. Even if you just lick it once and then put it back in to its packaging. Like it or not, its value tanked.
Its like car market. Car is worth only as much as someone is willing to pay for it. there is a reason why we got a "Dreamers" thread in motors forums.

In your case 140-150 is actually a reasonable price. Though as pointed out before some people want more for items, then they cost in shop with waranty.
My favourite pet is when people want to sell old chip motherboard/cpu for more then you can buy same speed/faster mid range board/cpu. They still think that they entitled to get more money, just because it was good back in the day and they payed **** loads for it.

TerrorFirmer

ShadowHearth wrote: »

My favourite pet is when people want to sell old chip motherboard/cpu for more then you can buy same speed/faster mid range board/cpu. They still think that they entitled to get more money, just because it was good back in the day and they payed **** loads for it.

I think that's exactly the problem with the 2nd hand market now - people aren't willing to face the reality of 1) devaluation and 2) rapid technological advancement.

Which is why you end up with being selling 5850/5870/6850/6870 with asking prices on par with brand new 7850/7870 and refusing to accept realistic offers based on that.

Like I said. I'm looking to buy a Sapphire Dual-x 7850 2GB for crossfire. Seller on adverts selling the same card for 190 - can get it new on Pix for 160. Refuses to sell it for less than his asking. Where's the logic there? I tried buying 6850's and 6870's for a 2nd machine, and can't find anyone willing to accept lower than 120+ - why the hell would I spend 120 on a 2 year old 2nd hand card when a faster, brand new 7850 is currently 138 on Pixmania?

People will always low-ball, regardless of the asking price. But people interested in hardware will appreciate the true value - if you put up a card at a fair price, you'll get asking. For example, I'd consider 90-100 euro more appropriate for a 6870, and I've no doubt that if you put up a GTX570 tomorrow for 150 euro, you'd have asking almost immediately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHunfH0XbI

TerrorFirmer

Besides, the problems isn't with the initial asking prices - it's far more so the sellers refusal to entertain offers despite the ridiculous asking price to being with compared to new hardware.

Serephucus

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Like it or not. It is already used. Even if you just lick it once and then put it back in to its packaging. Like it or not, its value tanked.

Fair enough if you're talking about a motherboard, but it's not like case specifications change every other year.

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Besides, the problems isn't with the initial asking prices - it's far more so the sellers refusal to entertain offers despite the ridiculous asking price to being with compared to new hardware.

This I can agree with, whole-heartedly.

indough

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Besides, the problems isn't with the initial asking prices - it's far more so the sellers refusal to entertain offers despite the ridiculous asking price to being with compared to new hardware.

but that is a matter of perspective, as a buyer your idea of ridiculous is going to be lower than the sellers. obviously charging 'as new' prices is stupid but its being overstated in this thread, it's definitely not the norm

ED E

Part of the problem is likely the fact that there are suckers out there paying some of these crazy prices, if nobody bought the items they'd eventually drop their askings.

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

But then you have to look at it from the other side.

I put something on Adverts, say my 670, for €300. A reasonable enough price, maybe a little high to accommodate wiggle room. I'll get someone offering €150 off the bat, without even looking to see what the card is worth. I've considered posting something for (in this example) €500 just to see if someone will give me the €300 it's worth quickly.

So to combat this, you have to raise your asking price some, knowing that you're going to get quite a lot less than it, to even out to reasonable market price, but then you get people yelling that they can buy the card new for the same price!

I probably would have bought this 670 as a thank you for the help had I known you were selling - too late now though

For what it's worth, yes this only seems to happen with Computers and Components. I buy a lot of music gear and if you offer 70%+ of the asking at least it gets entertained, if not accepted.

Serephucus

I don't actually have my 670 up for sale, it was just an example.

Snowie

look at iphones owners there as bad

marco_polo

Serephucus wrote: »

I don't actually have my 670 up for sale, it was just an example.

There 50 bucks waiting here if you ever change your mind

Gumbi

marco_polo wrote: »

There 50 bucks waiting here if you ever change your mind

65 delivered, final offer.

uncle_sam_ie

I'll trade you a wii console and cash

Serephucus

I can't let it go for less than 80, just wouldn't be worth my while.

Burgo

I'll pay in bitcoins!

BloodBath

Did you mine for those? Was thinking about doing it but can't be arsed if there's no returns.

Gumbi

BloodBath wrote: »

Did you mine for those? Was thinking about doing it but can't be arsed if there's no returns.

With the cost of electricity here, I doubt it.

Serephucus

Burgo wrote: »

I'll pay in bitcoins!

It's peanuts or nothing, sorry.

Eboggles

@Bloodbath If you get free electricity, it's worth it.

ED E

Or if you have an ASIC.

Portlawslim

Saw a GTX280 on adverts the other day for €250!
i had to leave a comment with a link and the smug ****** pm'd my saying it was already sold!

Gumbi

Portlawslim wrote: »

Saw a GTX280 on adverts the other day for €250!
i had to leave a comment with a link and the smug ****** pm'd my saying it was already sold!

People are ignorant regarding computer component in general, and there are sellers willing to exploit that. It's the reason ****e systems branded as monster gaming rigs actually sell.

Joeface

well as always 2 sides to every thing .

Sellers looking for a reasonable sales prices , Buyers looking for a bargain.

Biggest problem I see is the guys who hop onto every for sale and low ball. Its frustrating as a seller cause that has just forced your pricing down. Had an Add up was asking €120 ono when I started . first offer was €70 , not including P&P which would have had me at 58. fair enough you might say but when the same user has hopped off to 2 or 3 others selling the same card and offer them €60 when the asking was the same as mine. It tends to piss you off .The proposed buy(first bidder in my case) has no interested in a fair deal just there to annoy. So your next sale add is more tightly price and then you end up a been the bad guy.

Portlawslim

Joeface wrote: »

well as always 2 sides to every thing .

Sellers looking for a reasonable sales prices , Buyers looking for a bargain.

Biggest problem I see is the guys who hop onto every for sale and low ball. Its frustrating as a seller cause that has just forced your pricing down. Had an Add up was asking €120 ono when I started . first offer was €70 , not including P&P which would have had me at 58. fair enough you might say but when the same user has hopped off to 2 or 3 others selling the same card and offer them €60 when the asking was the same as mine. It tends to piss you off .The proposed buy(first bidder in my case) has no interested in a fair deal just there to annoy. So your next sale add is more tightly price and then you end up a been the bad guy.

Fair enough but €250 for a GTX280! that's a(if I'm not mistaken:o) 4 year old card

Joeface

Well yeah the GTX280 for that price is just silly.

I was selling a GTX295 for less than 100