Black Friday deals are even better when combined with the savings you get from buying used tech, but is it worth the risks?
Even with the discounts, we’re likely to see thanks to upcoming Black Friday deals, the latest tech rarely comes cheap. On the hunt for a bargain, your eyes might have been drawn to the reduced price of refurbished tech, but should you steer clear of these tempting offers or not? Refurbished, used and like-new devices may be less expensive than their out-of-the-box counterparts, but they also come with a degree of uncertainty – is the item just a little scuffed or are we paying out for a plastic brick? Thanks to our experience with buying tech secondhand we’re here to highlight why the refurbished tag shouldn’t immediately scare you away, but also what you need to look out for when buying something used. The reduced cost of refurbished tech is likely the biggest draw, attracting those on the hunt for reasonable prices. Even outside of Black Friday you can typically find savings of around 10-20% on gadgets that might be only a few months old. During Black Friday the deals will often get even sweeter as the sale prices on new products are carried over to their secondhand counterparts; with the refurbished discount being added on top you can potentially save a significant amount compared with the device’s usual RRP. We’ve had success buying second-hand games consoles, webcams, smartphones, and more – all of it at a much lower price than we would have otherwise paid. We further compounded the savings by trading in our own old tech at the same time, sometimes paying nothing to get our hands on the device we were after. Savings aren’t the only draw though, with another driving force being that secondhand purchases reduce electronic waste. Following the recent COP26 conference, climate change, its effects, and what we can do to prevent the situation from worsening have been on the minds of citizens across the globe. One way we can do our bit is by buying up older but usable tech rather than sending it to landfill.
