Refurbished GPS Products Are A No Brainer
Saturday, April 18th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Isn’t it strange how there seems to have been an explosion of refurbished GPS devices on the market, within just about any given ecommerce store that can be found by doing a google search? This shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone, finding quality GPS devices, especially those that you can use in your car, for a low price is definitely something that consumers want.
Why are there so many refurbished navigation GPS out on the market right now? There are actually a slew of reasons why companies are either forced or willingly choose to mark their GPS products as refurbished. Some refurbished GPS are still in their pristine, pre-production condition and haven’t even left their own packaging. Here is a list of some of the common reasons why electronics can get marked as “refurbished” by their manufacturer:
1. The product was a “return” by the customer that purchased it, indicating that there was some motivation on the part of the owner of the product to get their money back. In some circumstances the reason behind this return has nothing to do with the functionality or quality of the product; sometimes people just don’t want the product that they bought.
2. The manufacturer created too many of the specific model and needs to get ride of some of their inventory to make room for more. At that point the retailer will put the product back on the shelves at a marked down price, or ship the GPS back to TomTom, Garmin, or Magellan; once the company that made the product get it, the manufacturer will, in come cases, label the product “refurbished”, and then distribute the devices out again at greatly reduced prices. The funny part about this is the simple fact that the product is still literally brand new, and has never even been opened at all.
3. The product was a “demonstration” or “display model”. Devices used as display models generally get shipped back to the factory; the producer checks out the navigation unit for any defects or damage and then sends it back out to be sold as a refurbished GPS.
4. The product was opened. When this is the case, there is nothing wrong with the product, other than it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer to be repackaged, in which case, oddly enough, it is then labeled as “refurbished”.
5. Shipping damage. When this happens, it usually just means that only the box that the product was in got damaged, but if anything other than the product was damaged (accessories, or the actual unit), it is completely fixed or replaced by the manufacturer.
6. There was a defect in the product. This is can be a rare scenario. Once the defective GPS is in the hands of the manufacturer they test it to see what exactly is wrong with it, and anything that was broken or defective is replaced with brand new parts; once the repair is done the GPS is as good as new, and some might say it is now actually less likely to become defective than the non refurbished products sitting on the shelves of the retail stores; this is due to the fact that refurbished products under go very extensive testing.
In examining all these reasons we can see that refurbished GPS devices are probably just as good as “new” devices. The chances of getting a bad unit is probably just as likely as getting a “new” one so take the plunge, save some money, and go refurbished.
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