I've noticed a lot of Re-furbished items being sold lately.....

[Gray_Area]

On Ebay, at Walmart. I recently got some refurbed Logitech S221 speakers on ebay that were bad. (I have a three-year-old set from Newegg that are still strong.)

Is this a sign of the times?

[ed12]

hi
simple answer is yes
ppl will sell anything!!!!!
rem the term there is a sucker born every day

ed

[danny_galaga]

I think for a lot of people 'refurbished' means they passed a damp cloth over it. How on earth do you 'refurbish' a cheap set of speakers?

[Le Chuck]

So do you usually go to Wal-Mart to use their Ebay?

[Mysterioii]

My guess is that "refurbished" might be being used as a catch-all for open box returns, "ding 'n dents", cosmetic manufacturing flaws that prevent the items from being sold at full price to begin with, etc.

[Vigo]

Yep, Returning merchandise has become very popular. Most return policies are so lax, a lot of people don't shop around anymore, they just buy and return if they find something they don't like. A ton of refurbs are just the same as new. I'm sure some items that are more than $100 they actually spend time and refurbish, but I would guess 9 times out of 10, it is just an open box item.

I have also seen refurbished pop up in clearance situations. They might really have some refurbished in the mix, but they will just mark everything as refurbished and clearance everything. That way they don't have to honor returns after 60 days or whatever and can clear their inventory completely. I have gotten some nice new items cheaply that way, still completely sealed in box.

[Howard_Casto]

Also keep in mind there is refurbished and remanufactured.  Totally different. 

Refurbished means that somebody bought a product and returned it.  They may or may not have used it (so you might see dings and scratches ect) but when it was returned the manufacturer found it to be in perfect working order, so they re-packaged it for resale. 

Remanufactured is when somebody returns something because it broke or it didn't work, it gets sent back to the factory and "repaired".  This is what you want to avoid.  Generally when something is sent back because it doesn't work there was a manufacturing defect somewhere and no amount of repairs is going to stop it from being a crappy product. 

[wp34]

We have been buying refurbished Apple products at work for years.  They always arrive in new condition and we save 100's of dollars.  Plus you get the full warranty. 

[kahlid74]

If you shop on Woot/1 sale a day most of the "deals" are actually refurbished items.  I have bought many refurbished things and not one has ever been bad.  Knock on wood but my luck has been great.  So I wouldn't say all refurbished goods are bad but I would say the amount of $$ off makes it a good thing to look at.

[Slippyblade]

Just don't buy a Gamestop "refurb"...  They're not.  I was a manager there for years and I'd say about half of the systems that corp sent us from the "Refurbishment Center" were dead out of the box.  Red Ringed xboxes, yellow light PS3's, controllers with broken sticks, etc.  Junk.

[hypernova]

Also keep in mind there is refurbished and remanufactured.  Totally different. 

Refurbished means that somebody bought a product and returned it.  They may or may not have used it (so you might see dings and scratches ect) but when it was returned the manufacturer found it to be in perfect working order, so they re-packaged it for resale. 

Remanufactured is when somebody returns something because it broke or it didn't work, it gets sent back to the factory and "repaired".  This is what you want to avoid.  Generally when something is sent back because it doesn't work there was a manufacturing defect somewhere and no amount of repairs is going to stop it from being a crappy product. 

I've never seen the term "remanufactured" on merchandise.  It's always "refurbished".  While refurbished generally connotes cosmetic and other aesthetic properties that don't affect the product itself, I would wager that some companies use the term to denote stuff that's repaired because of some actual defect that affected the functioning of it.

Just don't buy a Gamestop "refurb"...  They're not.  I was a manager there for years and I'd say about half of the systems that corp sent us from the "Refurbishment Center" were dead out of the box.  Red Ringed xboxes, yellow light PS3's, controllers with broken sticks, etc.  Junk.

Gamestop being unscrupulous?  Perish the thought! 

[Howard_Casto]

I've never seen the term "remanufactured" on merchandise.  It's always "refurbished".  While refurbished generally connotes cosmetic and other aesthetic properties that don't affect the product itself, I would wager that some companies use the term to denote stuff that's repaired because of some actual defect that affected the functioning of it.

That's kind of the point.  I'm pretty sure they are required by law to let you know if the product has been remanufactured, but they sure try to hide it. 

Real world example:

I saw a cricut in a Big Lots ad a while back claiming to be refurbished.  It was like 60% off or something so I thought I would check it out.  I get there and indeed it has one of those big "refurbished" stickers on it.  It also had a bit of text added on in really small print.  The first line was something like "This product has been remanufactured" with a small paragraph of text explaining what that means.  They try to pass remanufactured stuff off as refurbished all the time.  You need to look very carefully, especially at your local closeout store.

[Gray_Area]

Mmmmmm. That all is what I figured.

[HaRuMaN]

cricut

Off topic, but a Cricut with the Sure-cuts-a-lot software is an awesome thing.   

[ChadTower]

I had never heard of Cricut before.  Looks pretty cool.   

[HaRuMaN]

I had never heard of Cricut before.  Looks pretty cool.   

A cricut with sure-cuts-a-lot allows you to cut svg files & any true type font (maybe other fonts, I forget).  If you get the heavy duty blade, you can cut adhesive vinyl and card stock.

[ChadTower]

Heh, too bad we can't get it to cut 1/8" acrylic...

[Howard_Casto]

Well I was going to pick one up for hacking.  You've essentially got a low-end, 2 axis, cnc.  It could probably be modified to work as a plotter, extruder, ect.... but I dunno.  I'm not willing to tear one up unless I can get it really cheap.

[Well Fed Games]

I had never heard of Cricut before.  Looks pretty cool.   

A cricut with sure-cuts-a-lot allows you to cut svg files & any true type font (maybe other fonts, I forget).  If you get the heavy duty blade, you can cut adhesive vinyl and card stock.

Wow, I could have a lot of fun with that!

[ChadTower]

I am thinking this would make complex stencils very easily. 

Now I'm wondering if this would be useful in making stencils for playfield touchup.  Scan the area, vectorize it, split it into layers, feed them into sure-cuts-a-lot...

[Vigo]

I have been looking at cricuts as well from time to time. The potential is wasted on the intended use of scrapbooking.