Newegg's Eggxpert Review Program

Okay well that makes me feel a little better then. Thanks for the quick responses. I guess I need to step it up on my reviews or something. I actually emailed Newegg aroiund 6 months ago to ask them why the volume of hardware has slowed down for me. I told them if my reviews weren't up to snuff, I want to know because I'll make some changes to my review style. I'm under the impression that they want things short and concise, hence the 3000 character limit. So that's the style I use.

Anyway, they responded by saying that they are more than happy with my reviews and want me to keep contributing great content. They said that they cycle through all their EggXpert reviewers and don't penalize anyone unless they fail to submit a review for any product they have been sent. So perhaps my luck has just been a little off... Hopefully things pick up soon. I'm still happy to get a product every month or so, but I am available to do much more.

I'm awaiting notification that Newegg are adding the Bugatti Veyron to their product line... news will be arriving via porcine aviators.

Keep dreaming.

balroger said:

I'm awaiting notification that Newegg are adding the Bugatti Veyron to their product line... news will be arriving via porcine aviators.

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a shame its been discontinued, so they will only be able to sell used ones.

A few months ago, they sent me an invite for a router I've already done. I replied I'd already done it, and was offered an H97 board which I accepted. Board appeared to be DOA, ASRock would not warrant it. Luckily I have it now running, a month after my [scathing] review went public. NewEgg was surprised that ASRock would do nothing for me despite me telling them that I was an EggXpert reviewer.

After that, I got a Corsair MM200 standard, have been happy with it. Replaced my Steelseries QCK.

Earlier this month, I got another "holy cow":

I replied immediately, saying I have AT&T and a micro SIM and can use the unlocked phone. They sent a supplemental question, which I answered. Then I received:

Sweet! (Right?) https://www.asus.com/Phones/ZenFone_2_ZE551ML/

Unfortunately - not yet.

Can't wait to get the phone....should be a worthy replacement to my Note II.
Sucks that it's been delayed with no US launch ETA that I've found yet.

Was wondering if anyone here had received this invite, but (looking over recent posts) I guess no. (Was hoping maybe someone had, and had received updated info on it.)

just received an offer to review a Radeon SSD

Hopefully they've done something to it since the spate of failures that one has had.

balroger said:

Hopefully they've done something to it since the spate of failures that one has had.

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Yeah saw,the dismal reviews hopefully they have fixed it

Can I ask you fellow EggXpert reviewers a question? I'm sure most of you end up selling some of the products you review after submitting your review. I mean let's face it, we often receive decent products that we really don't have use for, so it's a given that we might as well try to get a little money from them and give someone else a really good deal.

Anyway, unfortunately I no longer have a paypal account so I have to do all my sales locally. I mainly use Craigslist, but honestly I loathe this method. I used to use STW groups on FB but I ended up deleting my FB account a while back for reasons I won't get into (to summarize, FB is full of drama) so I can no longer use that method. The thing I hate most about Craigslist is that it doesn't have a portal for the city I live in, which is about 40 miles outside of Pittsburgh in the USA. All I can do is post items for sale via the Pittsburgh Portal, which means most of the people responding would have to drive semi-far to pick up the item. When I sell items on Craigslist, I absolutely refuse to meet people for safety concerns. I have them come directly to my residence, where I feel much safer making the transaction. I often offer the products at half price or at least with a very large discount, so I feel it gives them incentive to make the drive to pick them up. I've had some luck with Craigslist, because you can find some decent people that know a good deal when they see one and are strait up with you. You can usually tell right away when they first email you if they are serious or some type of scammer.

Lately, Craigslist seems to be getting worse. I just listed that WRT1900AC router on there for $135 USD, which I feel is an excellent price. It retails anywhere from $240-$250 at the major online retailers, and lets not forget you also have to include shipping. The first offer I got was someone that said he'd pay no more than $100 for it. I told him that's pretty much robbery and I simply cannot go that low. Then he had the audacity to email me back just to say thanks... I'm also trying to sell a reference EVGA GTX 670 2GB on there which is in excellent shape. I took very good care of this GPU and never overvolted it. I always cleaned out the dust and everything. I'm charging $125 USD for it, which I consider more than fair. The 670 is actually faster than the current 960 (which retails for 210-$240 USD), especially at higher resolutions. So far I've gotten around four offers for it, every one under $100. I'm like "are you kidding me?" The people on that site trying to lowball sellers are out of control. They are trying to prey on people they think are insanely desperate for money. It such a shame.

So anyway, I'm curious what avenue you guys take to sell your goods to get a fair price for them. Do you deal strictly online using Paypal? I guess I'm gonna have to create a new Paypal account after all. This has been a frustrating week to say the least...

If I sell anything, it will be in the classifieds here and I will use PayPal. I haven't sold anything yet. I did have a 3TB drive I reviewed for sale once but never sold it, ended up gone from the forums for a while, and it was removed from the classifieds, and I decided to keep it. I would love to sell this NAS, but at the same time I kinda want to keep it.

I feel ya on that. I'd want to keep that NAS as well, but my current financial situation would be better served if I sold it. Even if you sold it for half price you'd make out pretty nice, plus you'd help the person buying the product immensely.

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BTW, do you guys feel that $130 USD is a good deal for a reference EVGA GTX 670 2GB? I paid $430 for this card back in Q2 of 2012. It's crazy how fast GPU's lose their value. I'd say they lose their value faster than any other type of hardware. Even CPU's retain their value much longer. GPU tech moves TOO fast, lol.

Find out if there is a bunderground for your local community, like kingwoodunderground.com for Kingwood (a suburb of Houston). Sadly those tend to be almost as full of drama as Facebook, but you may get a bite.

The bundergrounds also often have a "classifieds" equivalent like kingwoodyardsales.com, where I sell a lot of equipment, although I often integrate it into an entire computer from spare parts and sell that. They tend to get more attention and move faster.

I personally think that you are under pricing the equipment. You are throwing up red "hot as a $100 Glock" flags to many buyers and only leaving yourself the cheapskates who try to whittle you down even more. Consider my IT business; we are VERY expensive, but we are the unqualified BEST at what we do. We don't hire kids right out of college. In fact, I recently had an employee poached away to TEACH college. Low-paying customers whine about every invoice, try to negotiate the amount/due date, and are slow to pay. High-paying customers pay full price, on time, with a smile, and refer everyone they know because they know they are getting value for their dollar. I leave the cheapskates to get swindled at $35/hr storefronts. You are probably experiencing the same phenomenon: low prices draw low-brow walmart shoppers, high (but competitive) prices draw honest well-off shoppers who are savvy to a good deal.

Try selling your equipment at 10%-20% below the lower of amazon/newegg. You'll probably fare much better with your customers.

LitlJay said:

Find out if there is a bunderground for your local community, like kingwoodunderground.com for Kingwood (a suburb of Houston). Sadly those tend to be almost as full of drama as Facebook, but you may get a bite.

The bundergrounds also often have a "classifieds" equivalent like kingwoodyardsales.com, where I sell a lot of equipment, although I often integrate it into an entire computer from spare parts and sell that. They tend to get more attention and move faster.

I personally think that you are under pricing the equipment. You are throwing up red "hot as a $100 Glock" flags to many buyers and only leaving yourself the cheapskates who try to whittle you down even more. Consider my IT business; we are VERY expensive, but we are the unqualified BEST at what we do. We don't hire kids right out of college. In fact, I recently had an employee poached away to TEACH college. Low-paying customers whine about every invoice, try to negotiate the amount/due date, and are slow to pay. High-paying customers pay full price, on time, with a smile, and refer everyone they know because they know they are getting value for their dollar. I leave the cheapskates to get swindled at $35/hr storefronts. You are probably experiencing the same phenomenon: low prices draw low-brow walmart shoppers, high (but competitive) prices draw honest well-off shoppers who are savvy to a good deal.

Try selling your equipment at 10%-20% below the lower of amazon/newegg. You'll probably fare much better with your customers.

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Well typically I do use a technique similar to that. But when it comes to Craigslist, when I list items at a fair price like that, I simply don't get any hits. I think all Craigslist is just full of "wal-mart" shoppers looking for that great deal.

Also, when you're selling older hardware like I am (I have an EVGA GTX 580 with the backplate installed for sale), they are no longer being sold on Amazon or Newegg so you can't go by those prices. You basically have to compete with Ebay, which is typically all over the place. It looks like a guy is going to buy this GTX 580 I have for $70 USD. I REALLY don't wanna let it go for that but I'm up against the wall here. Performance wise, I'd say it's worth a little more, especially if you factor in compute performance because Fermi blows even Maxwell out of the water in that area. When I think about how I paid $500+ (and another $20 for the backplate) for this 580, it really pains me to get rid of it at such a low price. I'm definitely going to be looking into a new method for selling my gear. As you said, I'm going to be targeting the higher class customer that appreciates things like the fact that I have the original box and all the accessories... The kind that appreciate good quality service.

I guess it depends on how much hardware you have around. I can pick up a new case/kb/mouse/speakers/OS license and a refurb monitor for about $250 (if I don't already have an OS license), throw together a machine out of spare parts and/or review items, and list it on Craigslist for $500-$1000 depending on how recent the cpu/gpu/etc. are. It looks and runs better than a brand new computer (especially if it has an SSD), so it rarely goes for more than $100 below my asking price. If some bone head tells me he can get it for half as much, I call his bluff and tell him to go buy it.

Get a DBA and find a local wholesaler to get the visible parts shiny and new as cheaply as possible. See if they'll give you net 10 or net 30 if you can't front the cash. Whole computers sell faster and for more money than just parts. There's a lot bigger market for them. Just have the buyer sign a waiver that it is refurbished and comes with no warranty if you don't want to deal with them after they drop it down the stairs or set it up on the porch.

The reason most businesses fail right out of the gate is not because people aren't good at what they do. They're usually brilliant at it, hence the motivation to strike out into entrepreneurship. They fail because they aren't good at BUSINESS. You have to THINK like your customer but FUNCTION like a business. If you run your business like you are a customer ("I don't want my 5 year old hardware to depreciate!") you'll get eaten alive in the feeding frenzy of customers. Do it like a businessman instead: "This antique hardware is not worth much anymore, but I can add value to it and mitigate that loss instead of it sitting here to depreciate further,"

I use the forums and paypal mostly if it dont sell here I may try ebay or craigslist

Ha, now the guy that said he'd definitely buy the EVGA GTX 580 for $70 USD just stopped responding after he said he definitely wanted it. No warning or anything. I so hate Craigslist... I really need to set up a viable route for moving used hardware. I mean I really wanna help people get good deals on older and newer hardware, but there are so many scammers and weirdos out there that using a site like Craigslist (with absolutely no moderation for sellers) is virtually impossible. Even a year ago it seemed I was able to find reliable customers just by weeding out a few of the smarmy ones here and there, but it's gotten much worse. Anyway, sorry for the topic change. I'll shut up about it now... Hopefully I'll get a new assignment soon.

BTW, thanks for the advice LitlJay. It's obvious you've got a good thing going on there and you know what you're doing.

still awaiting shipping details on my current assignment lol cant wait to see if they have fixed the issues with it or not Radeon SSD

Slamscaper, you're making me want to buy everything you have. XD

SIN, I remember you saying something about my UPS or whatever it's called. I almost signed up for it but scared me off with too many questions about my ex wife.

Pretty much my stuff is used or given away. I have sold a couple of drives but not much else. On which note they're sending me a 2TB USB 3.0 2.5" Seagate Expansion Drive.

balroger said:

Pretty much my stuff is used or given away. I have sold a couple of drives but not much else. On which note they're sending me a 2TB USB 3.0 2.5" Seagate Expansion Drive.

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Hey, they sent me a 2TB external USB 3.0 drive around 6-7 months ago and I love it. I use it for backups and it performs excellently over USB 3.0. Almost matches my internal drives in overall performance, no joke.

Aldakoopa, I truly wish you lived next door so I could sell you some stuff, lol. I took this $240 Linksys WRT1900AC to the local pawn shop just for the heck of it. I didn't expect to make a deal, but I wanted to see what they'd offer because I KNEW they didn't have any high-end routers like this in their store. The guy seemed more interested in the fact that I review products for Newegg than he did for the router itself (the EggXpert review item sticker was on the side), but he started looking up prices on ebay and claimed to find one still shrink wrapped for $54 USD. I didn't believe it, but he wouldn't let me check his screen. So I searched ebay when I got home, making sure to only check for "completed sales" which are marked with prices in green. There were only two of these routers that sold for $50 USD and one was marked as broken and the other was marked as a floor model with noticeable damage. I checked out the rest and on average, these routers go for $170 on ebay. Obviously this guy was trying to swindle me hardcore. I now have it listed for $120 and I'm still having trouble finding someone to buy it locally. Typically my routers always sell so easy too. But when I really need the money, this kind of stuff happens lmao.