Micro Center starts a GPU trade-in program

vegeta535 said:
I don't remember. I think it was based off how much the GPU was. Like $2-300 for a 3090 maybe?
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Yeah - around $250 or so. Not cheap, really - too high of a cost as a percentage of the cost of the card. Imagine a $2k 4090 plus $300 plus tax.
 
sk3tch said:
Yeah - around $250 or so. Not cheap, really - too high of a cost as a percentage of the cost of the card. Imagine a $2k 4090 plus $300 plus tax.
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It was fine cause people would essentially upgrade to a 5090 for $300.
 
Darunion said:
nice! but yea you see the same rage at car dealerships. No they arent going to give you 15k for your trade in and then sell it for 15.5k. No one that is wanting to resell something will buy it real close to the price they will sell it for. usual goal is a 30% margin.
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I bought a new cable modem a few months ago at Best Buy and they were offering $40 for your old modem, so I brought in our first Motorola cable modem we got back in 2000 which isn't worth anything.
 
Zepher said:
I bought a new cable modem a few months ago at Best Buy and they were offering $40 for your old modem, so I brought in our first Motorola cable modem we got back in 2000 which isn't worth anything.
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Retailers' typical angle for these types of offers is

1. Engagement (get people into the store to buy something, knowing the statistical percentages and averages for people that do, how many items, types of items, average gross and net per receipt)
2. Margin (profit) on the new purchase you're "trading in" for, which alone usually more than covers the credit offered.
3. Palletizing the old junk people traded in, and sending it out to liquidation auction by truckload, or e-waste with a writeoff. Typically subcontracted to a logistics service provider.
4. Upsells on junk warranties while you're captive in store (a whole 'nuther slimy topic). The percentage of customers that fall for these is actually frightening.

And numerous other things that varies by retailer, but they're making out very well when averaged across all stores and customers that engage these offers. "Unless your yacht got a bowling alley, seven jet hot tub and taxidermied rhino, you ain't shit" --Jeff Bestbuy
 
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Darunion said:
nice! but yea you see the same rage at car dealerships. No they arent going to give you 15k for your trade in and then sell it for 15.5k. No one that is wanting to resell something will buy it real close to the price they will sell it for. usual goal is a 30% margin.
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I tried looking up my 4090 Suprim X Liquid for giggles. They would give $699 for it.

I could go on Ebay and peddle and sell it off for $1699. Kiiiiinda not a good deal.
 
DPI said:
Retailers' typical angle for these types of offers is

1. Engagement (get people into the store to buy something, knowing the statistical percentages and averages for people that do, how many items, types of items, average gross and net per receipt)
2. Margin (profit) on the new purchase you're "trading in" for, which alone usually more than covers the credit offered.
3. Palletizing the old junk people traded in, and sending it out to liquidation auction by truckload, or e-waste with a writeoff. Typically subcontracted to a logistics service provider.
4. Upsells on junk warranties while you're captive in store (a whole 'nuther slimy topic). The percentage of customers that fall for these is actually frightening.

And numerous other things that varies by retailer, but they're making out very well when averaged across all stores and customers that engage these offers. "Unless your yacht got a bowling alley, seven jet hot tub and taxidermied rhino, you ain't shit" --Jeff Bestbuy
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They did the same thing for storage, bring in an old hard drive and get 25% off a new hard drive. Used that a couple of times for some 14TB Easystores when they were $189.
 
vegeta535 said:
I believe they got rid of that warranty because people were abusing the hell out of it. Back when I was in line to buy a 3080 a guy would get the warranty and would brick the card when a new generation came out. Take it back for a full refund to buy the new card.
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Yep, we had a member on H who used to do it every generation. It was pathetic. He bragged about it extensively... It's a shame it got abused so much.

If I had a local micro center, I would definitely have used it legitimately in case my card broke and not abused it. 15% up charge for the video card for a same day swap would have been well worth the peace of mind vs mailing it in to a manufacturer.
 
GoldenTiger said:
If I had a local micro center, I would definitely have used it legitimately in case my card broke and not abused it. 15% up charge for the video card for a same day swap would have been well worth the peace of mind vs mailing it in to a manufacturer.
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They're so nice at MC that abusing the store would just feel like stealing from a friend. They're one of the last B&M's that haven't been ground in the gears of autonomous warehouse machinery and faceless, online-ordered-Amazon-everything.
 
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GoldenTiger said:
Yep, we had a member on H who used to do it every generation. It was pathetic. He bragged about it extensively... It's a shame it got abused so much.

If I had a local micro center, I would definitely have used it legitimately in case my card broke and not abused it. 15% up charge for the video card for a same day swap would have been well worth the peace of mind vs mailing it in to a manufacturer.
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I used it on my 3090 strix that died. It died 2 months before the 4090 came out, lucky me because I bought it during covid for $2200 and got $2200 back and bought a 4090 when it came out. I bought the warranty on my 4090s as well just in case because it was a super easy process. Sad people abused it, hoping they still honour my warranties if something happened again.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yep, we had a member on H who used to do it every generation. It was pathetic. He bragged about it extensively... It's a shame it got abused so much.

If I had a local micro center, I would definitely have used it legitimately in case my card broke and not abused it. 15% up charge for the video card for a same day swap would have been well worth the peace of mind vs mailing it in to a manufacturer.
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Don’t forget the sales people tell people they can do this with the warranty. I had this happen several times. They want their commission. It’s not as if Micro Center is fully innocent.
 
Damn 3090 I bought years ago and returned Still looks up as 384 bucks. Yeah no, I'd pass.
 
///AMG said:
I used it on my 3090 strix that died. It died 2 months before the 4090 came out, lucky me because I bought it during covid for $2200 and got $2200 back and bought a 4090 when it came out. I bought the warranty on my 4090s as well just in case because it was a super easy process. Sad people abused it, hoping they still honour my warranties if something happened again.
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They do honor. But they test now. They don't just take your word on it.
 
vegeta535 said:
Micro Center does like not check anything that is returned to them in general. How are they going to try and a open box MB with bent pins with thermal grease all over the socket. Also missing 95% of the accessories lol.
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Amazon certainly doesn't. Boggles my mind too, I'm sure they could save lots of money by just hiring some people to inspect returns to see if they are physically damaged.
 
Furious_Styles said:
Amazon certainly doesn't. Boggles my mind too, I'm sure they could save lots of money by just hiring some people to inspect returns to see if they are physically damaged.
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I think it depends. They have the whole Amazon Warehouse thing...I was able to save a TON of money on a 10G switch that way. They repackage it and assess condition - there must be some kind of functionality check, too - as at least I have had no issues with functionality over the years with many items.
 
sk3tch said:
I think it depends. They have the whole Amazon Warehouse thing...I was able to save a TON of money on a 10G switch that way. They repackage it and assess condition - there must be some kind of functionality check, too - as at least I have had no issues with functionality over the years with many items.
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Yeah I wonder if that's just for returns with the reason "ordered wrong item" and the like. I say that because so many of the mobos on ebay are amazon returns. Hell even a bunch of MC ones are on there, so I have to wonder if MC inspects returns for damage.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
I tried looking up my 4090 Suprim X Liquid for giggles. They would give $699 for it.

I could go on Ebay and peddle and sell it off for $1699. Kiiiiinda not a good deal.
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You're trading in your car to a dealer, not privately selling it to another user. Micro Center would make $0 if they gave you $1,699 for the card.
 
Armenius said:
You're trading in your car to a dealer, not privately selling it to another user. Micro Center would make $0 if they gave you $1,699 for the card.
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Well, certainly, but we're talking a difference of $1000. That is, the difference between how much I would get if I sold it privately and how much they would give me, is more than they would give me total (by $300). It's not even half the price it's currently worth. I don't know, that's a hard pill to swallow. It might make more sense by the time the 5090 is around the corner, but by then they will have again probably slashed how much they're giving. I think it's (somewhat) fine if they were offering around $1000-1100. But $700? That's kind of silly.
 
Furious_Styles said:
Amazon certainly doesn't. Boggles my mind too, I'm sure they could save lots of money by just hiring some people to inspect returns to see if they are physically damaged.
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Opposite actually. They sell off the pallets of returns. So this lets them get additional money for returned items. And amazon would have no way of knowing about all products what the conditions are for it. Each items manufacturer would have to provide a check list of things to look at per item. This ends up being a lot of time and money and would be then pushed off the the companies sellng on amazon. And they would rather not spend the time and money to sort returns either.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Well, certainly, but we're talking a difference of $1000. That is, the difference between how much I would get if I sold it privately and how much they would give me, is more than they would give me total (by $300). It's not even half the price it's currently worth. I don't know, that's a hard pill to swallow. It might make more sense by the time the 5090 is around the corner, but by then they will have again probably slashed how much they're giving. I think it's (somewhat) fine if they were offering around $1000-1100. But $700? That's kind of silly.
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It's never going to be even close to as good as selling directly to someone. There's a reason there aren't any stores doing that now and never have.
 
sharknice said:
It's never going to be even close to as good as selling directly to someone. There's a reason there aren't any stores doing that now and never have.
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unless you are selling to someone you know, it could be a much bigger headache...who knows if the buyer will claim something is wrong with the GPU etc
 
p3sty said:
at the end of the day ffs guys Microcenter is one of the last places we can go . You didnt expect them to lose money did you?
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Right! They have to make a profit, and cover losses from people who try and stiff them. There are still plenty of worn out mining cards out there they probably don't want back lol.
 
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