Have you ever bought a brand new TV?
I have. In fact, I got one a few days ago. When I moved into my new apartment and bought a living room set, the deal included a brand new TV from Best Buy or a $645 gift card.
I wanted a new TV, but I didn’t want the one they were offering because it was only 720p and it was a plasma and it was 3d. I wanted a 1080p LED TV and I didn’t care about 3d.
I did some searching on Best Buy’s website and found a few TVs that I liked, but I wanted to stay close to the $645 price range so I didn’t have to pay much out of pocket. I eventually found a 55″ 1080p LED TV I liked, but it cost $900. That’s quite a bit more than $645. I didn’t want to pay that much extra, so I thought I might have to find a different model.
But then it hit me. If I could find a store that has that TV as an open box item, I can get a better deal. In addition to that, I won’t have to wait for it to be shipped to me (since it was only sold online) and I can actually see the TV and the picture before I decide to buy it.
Searching for Open Box TVs at Best Buy
An open box item is a product that has either been purchased and returned by another customer (if it had defects, those were fixed and it retains the original warranty), or it was a floor model that the store wants to get rid of. They can’t sell these things as “new” because they aren’t officially new, so they have to sell them at a discount even though they are hardly different than a “new” one.
The hard part of buying open box items is that it can be hard to find a store that has the exact TV (or whatever else you want) as an open box item. I used Best Buy’s Open Box and Clearance Items webpage to search the clearance inventory of stores in my area.
It’s not the best webpage in the world. You can’t search by product; you have to go individually through every store near you and see if they have what you’re looking for. At least it’s better than driving all around town to look.
This particular store offered open box items for 15% off (25% if you used a Best Buy credit card). That made my $900 TV cost only $765.
When you consider I already had a $645 gift card it was worth it. I upgraded from a 51″ 720p plasma TV to a 55″ 1080p 120Hz LED TV for only $120. That’s a sweet deal!
Readers: Have you ever purchased an open box item to save money? How did it turn out for you?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
That works though I wonder if you could negotiate that down further as 15% doesn’t really seem like enough. We bought an open box stroller at Buy Buy Baby for over 50% off when it was all said and done.
I didn’t even really think of that. I wonder if I could have talked them down a bit. I’ll have to keep that in mind next time.
Bradsdeals.com regularly has TV deals mentioned and some of them are the refurbished units at a good discount. These also typically come with the same warranty as the new units.
Thomas Nitzsche
ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions
For websites that find great deals, I prefer slickdeals.net
They find tons of great deals and also have a pretty cool community if you have time to interact on the message boards (which I unfortunately don’t).
Although we don’t open box shop very often, the times we do saves a ton of money. The best purchase I made was on Black Friday a couple years ago. I was wanting a Smith Machine that way I could work out at home instead of going to the gym. We went into MC Sports and they had one that I liked, and it was marked down to $800 for the black friday sale (originally $1400). I was willing to pay that much, but they were out of stock. I asked them if they would sell me the floor model for a discount and they asked how much I was willing to pay. I told them $550 and the lady went to ask the manager. She came back and said the manager agreed but that I would have to wait til the next day to pick it up (it had to be disassembled). It was kind of a hassle hauling it somewhat assembled but it was totally worth the savings buying the floor model.
That’s awesome. I really didn’t think about negotiating past the 15%, but I should have. I did that once when buying a display couch, but only did it because there was some minor damage. It never hurts to ask I guess.
Many years ago. bought an open box TV and it was fine. It helped that I had a friend who worked in the store to tip me off.
Yeah, having a friend would definitely help, although a google search for “open box items [insert store]” should probably do the trick for most big stores too.
My post tomorrow is actually about the very same subject except for a laundry dryer. Make sure it check it out if you want to see the steal of a deal I got!
I always look for open box items. I got a decent discount off my IPAD that way. People have a weird aversion to open box stuff, tho.
I bought a pair of floor speakers open box from Best Buy about 10 years ago and they still work great. It’s the exact same product, just without a box.