"Open Box" items from certain online retailers, have they actually ever been opened?

[Xonetacular]

I've bought supposedly 'open box' and 'B-stock' items from certain online retailers for years and every single time the item looks like it has never been opened with all the tape, box, original internal packing, etc. Some 'open box' stuff I have bought looks like it has been drop shipped from the distributor new.

So I have to wonder if this is just a tactic used by some companies to be able to publicly list their products for lower prices than the minimum advertised retail price and they are really just selling brand new in box stuff.

From proaudiostar:

Open Box
This open box unit was used to show an in store customer. It was not plugged in or used at all. Just carefully opened to display and carefully re-packaged. Because of this we cannot sell it as new, and will pass on the savings to you. The unit still comes with full manufucaturer warranty and is covered by our friendly return policy

Well that's interesting considering proaudiostar is a loft in brooklyn and the only people who go there are people who know exactly what they want, and no one on staff would open a box if it would automatically shave $200 off the price of a CDJ-2000 and cost them any money. These places also seem to have an unlimited stock of open box items. It's also interesting that if you email or call them they will give you the "open box price" on new items.

[jimbrowski00]

yup... smart tip for the frugal shopper

[Xonetacular]

yup... smart tip for the frugal shopper

So then there's really no reason not to buy open box...

[jimbrowski00]

nope... I read a thread over on the serato forum and they were saying the same thing. Over and over a guy ordered open box speakers and ALWAYS got new stuff.

I think it's a way of getting around MAP pricing... and I'm not mad at them for it

[ToS]

Very useful info guys. Thanks.

[Kayzee]

DAMN no open box s4's

[Louie_V]

As someone who works for a company that does this i can honestly say, its sometimes used as a way to sell items below MAP, however it does come in handy when we do actually have something opened to sell.

if we were to put an item below the map price (even it only by a dollar or 2 with some companies) we risk being penalized. Some companies can be really strict about this and pull your authorization after the first warning, while some don't really check. Either way it saves our a$$es because there is no map on b-stock or open box

[Invoke]

awesome ! I've wondered the same thing before. I'm actually about to go buy some stuff off ebay that's listed as B-stock, i was debating doing that or using some guitar center coupon i got for some "new" gear.

[tads]

Well that's interesting considering proaudiostar is a loft in brooklyn and the only people who go there are people who know exactly what they want, and no one on staff would open a box if it would automatically shave $200 off the price of a CDJ-2000 and cost them any money. These places also seem to have an unlimited stock of open box items. It's also interesting that if you email or call them they will give you the "open box price" on new items.

I had an interesting experience when I went to the ProAudioStar loft. I had saw an open box mixer on the website and they weren't able to find it and they were quickly ready to give me the open box price on a new one. Then they found the open box item and were ready to get a discount off of that. It seemed like they were more concerned with building a solid customer base and moving as much product as they could as opposed to trying to squeeze the most out of each customer. It's really worth it to call them up and ask for a deal because they may do it.

[dIptyche]

Love me some open box...