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Alternative way to lower computing cost [Bargains]

I tune in quite a fair bit to Diary of a Singaporean Mind, more so for its frank views on current economic and political landscape. However, this latest post turned out to be useful for most people.

What happen was that he managed to purchase a PC on ebay on the cheap for 88 bucks and these pc are really not too shabby, for our daily surfing use. I believe these PCs could be good to recommend to folks who are more hard up with cash but need a pc for their children’s education needs and simply because they require one to work at home.

When I collected the PC, the friendly seller told me that he does this for a living. He actually drove to the meeting place so he can’t be doing too badly. But how can someone make money selling used PCs for $88?! Curious I did a check on the past auctions put up by the seller and found out he sold more than 50 pieces of the PC I bought over a 3 week period ….someone actually managed to bid for one at $70 in an earlier auction. I started checking and found that there are a number of people doing this. Here is an example [Link] of someone trying to sell off 300 sets of Compaq…another person with 7 sets of used PC [Link]. How it works is something like this companies upgrade their PCs regularly and they don’t wait for the PCs to become unreliable or give trouble because downtime can be very costly especially in brokerages, banks etc. Sometimes an upgrade is necessary because of bloated enterprise software runs too slowly on existing hardware. Companies get rid of these old machines fast after cleaning out the date on the harddisk – they don’t waste time to get the best prices because you need to sell piecemeal and deliver to individual buyers.

A few places where one can source for personal computers that are below cost prices are Hardwarezone Forums, VR-Zone Forums and EBay. Do note that your expectations would need to be tuned down abit as most likely you are buying a computer that is a generation back.

My mantra these days is not to buy first hand products as much as i can. Really its not worth it if you don’t mind doing more research for second hand goods. You are essentially paying much for being the first adopter and there is a premium for being the first adopter. Dell’s 24 inch LCD used to sell at 1599 SGD before dropping to sub 700 SGD levels. The prices of good graphics card also do not hold value.

If you want to purchase some hard asset that truely holds more value than you are better off with properties and gold bars!

Kyith

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