Buying used parts, building a whole PC Tower and selling it for profit. Anyone still does this?

[Brandi93]

Basically I've never done this before, it was my first time and maybe I got lucky but as a side hustle, doing something in my home and as a hobby, I earned a decent penny for how relatively easy and fast I've done it. 

 

I've found some decent deals on used parts. Found a CPU + Mob + 16GB RAM DDR4 combo for 150 EUR. 

Found a used Manli 12GB RTX 2060 Graphics card for 160 EUR. 

600W Power Supply and 500GB SATA III SSD, along with a cheap but nice looking case cost me around another 110 EUR. 

 

420 EUR expenses. I put it for sale at 650 EUR, sold it for 600 EUR. 

180 EUR profit. 

 

Wondering if anyone still hunts for deals, for used PC parts and sells them as a complete PC Tower nowadays and what kinds of profits you do? Also if you can share what worked for you and what didn't... 

 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

I more do the opposite, find complete towers for a good deal and part them out for a profit. It's a bit more consistent to make money off of in my experience since most people expect a deal for selling all components together. Downside to this is I end up with a basement full of computer cases that I need to figure out how to get rid of. 

[Dedayog]

11 minutes ago, Brandi93 said:

Basically I've never done this before, it was my first time and maybe I got lucky but as a side hustle, doing something in my home and as a hobby, I earned a decent penny for how relatively easy and fast I've done it. 

 

I've found some decent deals on used parts. Found a CPU + Mob + 16GB RAM DDR4 combo for 150 EUR. 

Found a used Manli 12GB RTX 2060 Graphics card for 160 EUR. 

600W Power Supply and 500GB SATA III SSD, along with a cheap but nice looking case cost me around another 110 EUR. 

 

420 EUR expenses. I put it for sale at 650 EUR, sold it for 600 EUR. 

180 EUR profit. 

 

Wondering if anyone still hunts for deals, for used PC parts and sells them as a complete PC Tower nowadays and what kinds of profits you do? Also if you can share what worked for you and what didn't... 

 

 

Some do, I have a few friends that actively hunt like that.  Most do as @RONOTHAN## said, then they have parts to get rid off that basically offset any gains they made

 

 

I just know that the term "side hustle" just means "fucking job", and I already have a 40-50 hour job.  Don't need another

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 hours ago, Dedayog said:

I just know that the term "side hustle" just means "fucking job", and I already have a 40-50 hour job.  Don't need another

Yep

But sometimes you can make side hustles on your hobbies so it can be fun and you can make some extra money

 

Currently still trying to sell this stupid x58 thingy, now im looking at buying a used 1660 super or 1080 for it

 

 

Once i get this sold next up will problably be some sort of build that is gonna sell for <660$ (in my currency under 10 million idr) but is around 500$ to build, looking for some sort of 5600 based build with one of those manli 3070m gpus that are currently selling for 230$ (3070m chip turned into a desktop card), tray 5600 are falling alot in price and closing in on 5500 so no need for a good board that can clock rams which means i may be able to get away with just flashing a dirt cheap a320 with a b350 bios and still be able to overclock the 5600

 

Just gotta pay attention to the competitiors with their pricing and specs to determine my pricing, i can problably get away with being close to 800$ cause the only competitor i have is a 4500 + 3070 based pc with a meekly 256gb of storage and 16gb of ram, im looking to both outspec and undercut my competitors since im looking at a 5600 + 3070 + 32gb + 512gb/1tb kinda build, only thing remotely close is at 950$ i can cut my prices wayyy down if neccesary cause im using mostly used parts

 

 

I still dont have a car but maybe in a few months i can buy one once this stupid thing sells =/

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Yep

But sometimes you can make side hustles on your hobbies so it can be fun and you can make some extra money

 

 

It's also a great way to kill the passion and fun you have for the hobby.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

27 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

It's also a great way to kill the passion and fun you have for the hobby.

I have personally experienced that aswell

Cant focus on buisness too much cause if that takes over its no fun anymore and just another job that problably pays less than a real job

 

hence why im also buying some odd hardware to play around with, i mean i bought a celeron d 347 to toy around with and overclock which i havent done yet cause im kinda lazy to take out my giga g31m thats just been collecting dust in a pc case

 

Then theres also some cases where you can have fun and make some money, for me thats the deal i got recently for an untested 970 extreme3 and fx 4130 which didnt work at first but figured out it was a bad cmos jumper and ram slots were dirty which for some reason gives code 00 on am3 (makes troubleshooting more annoying cause it can be confused for dead board or cpu socket issues w/o speaker), currently its drying out and ill problably have to wait like 12-16 more hours cause i just dunked it in water to really make sure its clean, basically gonna oc the shit out of the fx 4130 and my existing fx 4100 see how far i can push em, and problably resell with the worse cpu of the two oced to 4.6-4.8 with a modded stock cooler cause for whatever reason it comes with the copper stock cooler (just gonna ziptie a 92mm foxconn fan on it)

[cmndr]

It IS possible to make money doing this. It's just a hassle. 

Keep in mind, you're competing against literal sweat shops in developing countries. They're building new systems every day. 

You pretty much need to find VERY undervalued systems, hope nothing is wrong with them, find customers, and deal with A LOT of logistics issues. 

There's a reason why Dell and HP are emphasizing the desktop PC market less and less. There isn't much money to be made on the NEW market anymore, yet along the second hand market. 

 It isn't 1991 anymore. $5000 doesn't buy a so-so PC that gets obsoleted in a year or two. $500 gets something that's complete overkill for 95% of people and will be for the next 5 years. 

[ToboRobot]

I think it's important to calculate time and investments, and consider the opportunity costs, unless you are content with a hobby that you enjoy that may generate revenue.

If the goal is to make money, there may be more productive uses for your time and capital.  If that's not the goal, then hell yeah, have fun and do some good for people and the planet.

In the past I would buy parts (CPUs mainly) from overclockers looking for golden samples and would resell them, and occasionally build a system for someone.