GPS for Motorcycles, Comparisons and Reviews

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, considering the popularity of the hand held refurbished devices, and especially the automotive GPS devices.

What are the reasons behind this deluge of cheap refurbished GPS out there? There are actually a slew of reasons why companies are either forced or willingly choose to mark their GPS products as refurbished. Oddly enough, some of the refurbished GPS devices have actually never even had a problem at all, and in some cases, they are still brand new, literally still factory sealed. 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, which means that they returned the item to the store that they bought it from within 30 days of the purchase date. More often than not, there is literally nothing even wrong with the product; sometimes people just don’t want the product that they bought.

2. A product could find itself “over stocked” and the company could be looking for ways to unload inventory. When this happens, the store will either sell the product for a clearance price, or deliver the unit to it source; when the product is sent back to the manufacturer, a business decision needs to be made about how to best handle the new inventory, this sometimes has the outcome of the device getting labeled “refurbished”, and then sell the “refurbished” product to specific retailers/wholesalers for a greatly reduced price. In some cases these “refurbed” products will have never been opened, meaning that the discount is for no reason at all.

3. The product was a “demonstration” or “display model”. Devices used as display models generally get shipped back to the factory; the factory then inspects the product, makes any necessary changes, and ships it back out under the refurbished label.

4. The device’s packaging was opened by a customer. 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. Sometime boxes get crushed or dropped by shipping personnel, if the damage is major or minor, components or just cosmetic, the unit is shipped back and labeled refurbished.

6. There was a defect in the product. How common this is depends largely on the product and how many mistake the manufacturer made in creating the product. Once the defective GPS is in the hands of the manufacturer they test it to see what exactly is wrong with it, and if they are able to repair the item’s cosmetic or mechanical problem they do so; when the process is complete, the product is literally brand new again, and some might say it is now actually less likely to become defective than the non refurbished products sitting on the shelves of Best Buy; this is due to the fact that refurbished products under go very extensive testing.

Refurbished GPS units represent a value to consumers that they should take advantage of. 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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