A friend was showing me this new gadget he bought recently where it is about one thousand dollars in the stores. So I was kind of surprised he bought it since I haven’t seen any sale prices for it. He then mentioned he didn’t buy it new as he bought it used online. It was surprising to hear the price where by the sounds of it he saved about one hundred dollars. To me that sounds too little. In this case it was about ten percent off.
For used items I usually only consider it if it is about twenty five percent off. Especially if you are buying it second hand from another person which usually means you lose things like your warranty. For a ten percent discount it almost feels like you should just get the new one as it’s like you are going to pay extra for a warranty as well. Even a car drops in value a ton just for being used.
I remember in a store one of the pitches that was profitable was to sell use electronics with a three year warranty. It basically is more expensive than getting a new unit but technically the warranty would be longer in that case. The business profits a lot too. You just can’t be too sure with used stuff. Even getting say a used smartphone could mean the battery needs to be replaced which can often cost one hundred dollar. So for me the discount needs to be better unless the person can somehow show it is good as new per se.