Christmas is slowly creeping up and as expected there are going to be some hot items in people’s most wanted gift list. One thing I was thinking about for example is that there is a new video game system called the Nintendo Wii-U coming out which no doubt is going to sell out on the day of its release as even per-orders are filling up quickly. This got me thinking a little as while many people will pre-order one for themselves, many people also try to pre-order more than one as the strategy is to essentially sell the second one.

What’s interesting too is that I often hear this turn into an ethics issue where people say it is wrong to buy more than one in this case as people are essentially depriving someone else the chance to get an item that is in short supply. On the flip side some say that is smart as you can essentially get enough money back if you resell it, assuming it is a hot item,which makes it as if you are saving say 50% off your purchase.

I personally don’t see it as right or wrong in this case as it’s not exactly a life essential and it is no different than anyone else trying to make money trough means such as buying cheap from a wholesaler and reselling it to make a profit. As well, if someone is willing to pay so much more is it wrong for the person to say no? I remember one funny example I saw at a mall as a person lined up to buy this new system as he pre-ordered it. Then out of the blue this lady walks up to the guy and said that she will pay him $1000 right on the spot for that system. As expected, he took the offer as the item itself was about $300 only.

In some ways I would say maybe it is good practice for anyone that is trying to be entrepreneurial. For some company’s too they don’t even expect a down payment or that it is fully refundable. So in terms of risk there isn’t really any. Like in those cases it’s one of those it doesn’t hurt to try.

I was just reading about these new hand-held devices that were coming out and of course many people want the latest and greatest. There was one person who was saying how he just had a stack of old devices that are pretty much junk to him at this point. What this made me think was how if you try to sell your devices ahead of time before actually purchasing the new stuff you could earn a lot of your money back that way.

Take for instance a mobile phone. A lot of people upgrade them within one to three years due to the contracts that people sign. I many of these cases too people get the very fancy models. I would say if you tried to sell it before getting a new one you could at least get 25% back of what you originally paid for it as I’m sure you can find a buyer somewhere for it. Otherwise you are most likely going to simply toss it into a box as it depreciates in value. Unless you are a collector then that is a little different.

It should be pretty simple to find buyers too as we have so many tools available such as free online classified ads and auction sites.

Today I saw a sale on a computer part that was incredibly cheap. You could easily save about $300 if you bought the item compared to what other places are charging for it. Of course, the thing is that this is just one component of many that you would need to actually build a system. While I do intend to build a new system in the future, my thought is that better things will come out by. With that in mind, even though the price seems so good that the retail price probably still won’t be as cheap by the time I want to build one it seems more sensible to hold off.

It’s more for habit I guess too as I don’t want to get in a trend of continually justifying purchases simply because the price is so cheap. Isn’t that how people end up with a like a full closet of clothes that they never wear for example? As usual too I try to think whether or not I can easily sell the item to make a profit where if I did by it at least that way I am earning something and it is not going to waste. In this case I’m thinking when you resell things in a casual way people usually expect to buy things that are a lot cheaper than retail. So the profit won’t be as great.

I think non-perishable food items are the only real things that I would immediately jump on if the prices were great and knowing that I would consume them in the future for sure.