“Open Box” items from certain online retailers, have they actually ever been opened?
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:
[QUOTE]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[/QUOTE]
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.
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
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
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.
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.
I ordered some stuff from pro audio star and they really helped me out. They have a feature on their site to ask for a deal and they usually deliver. I wish I was back in NYC to see the place and talk to the guys that helped me out so much. Took a little while to get the stuff out of the warehouse but once it shipped it made it to Turkey in a week flat. I expected things to move slow since they could only ship USPS to military bases. Overall I got a great deal and am totally satisfied. I would def. recommend these guys.
Same here, started a new job this month and we do the same thing. BUT we do get a decent amount of walk ins from people who have been buying from us for years so for those peeps we have no issue opening up a Dave Smith Prophet08 and letting them play with it because they will more than likely buy it.
One guy alone has spent 41G’s this past year! I always though GAS was a joke but it’s a real thing!
I picked up my Xone:2D for $599 AU, it was listed under CLEARANCE ITEMS but didn’t say anything in particular about open box or previous use. I was waiting to pick one up cheap to pair with my 1D that was also nabbed at a good price (at the time). Prior to placing the order I thought i’d be cheeky and ask another store to pricematch (one that i’d purchased a considerable amount of kit from in the past ~$3K+) They told me they couldn’t pricematch because it was below their cost (their members price was $949)
So i placed the order quick as I could and proceeded to make payment straight away. I waited a week or two and the order was still not completed. I called them up to ask why there was a delay as I had assumed it was some sort of open box or clearance stock. They told me the unit was on order from their supplier and wasn’t far away. It did eventually come - BRAND NEW.
just ordered some tma1’s from them. I asked them to price match the deal turntablelab had on them which was 160 and they countered with 150 shipped no tax… sick deal imo
