buy ram cheap then sell it high later on??

[jjyiz28]

i had a thought. wait and check prices everyday, read up on news, etc.. until prices for ddr drops to its lowest and begins to rise in price again. then buy lots of 512mb ddr266 or 333, don't open them, wait awhile, then sell em new on ebay. i know ram prices fluctuates but for now its no secret that its gonna keep going down for now. is this a wise "investment"??

 

[John]

You'd be better off investing in a one year AnandTech forums subscription.

 

[acid16]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
i had a thought. wait and check prices everyday, read up on news, etc.. until prices for ddr drops to its lowest and begins to rise in price again. then buy lots of 512mb ddr266 or 333, don't open them, wait awhile, then sell em new on ebay. i know ram prices fluctuates but for now its no secret that its gonna keep going down for now. is this a wise "investment"??

Not really. After shipping costs calculate, plus the fact that stuff on ebay sells cheaper than retail..... and its somewhat risky. Prices would need to go up alot. If you do this, then go with high end ram for sure (pc3200 mainly). PC3200 is the way to go, since AMD will be releasing a 400mhz bus soon... and it will be the final switch. Dont go with pc2100, as it's dieing and will be dead soon 😉 But yeah, if you buy enough sticks then you can profit. Expect your profit to only be about $15 per stick though (if you're lucky) after ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping and blah blah blah. So you'd need to buy in huge volume to see a difference. So say you bought 100 sticks, that would be a profit of $1500. But then, you need to come up with the money to buy 100 sticks, which is ALOT (like $6000 or $7000 for 512mb sticks). Overall, it's not as easy as it sounds...... but you can try 😉

 

[Hulk]

Acid16 is on the money here. Sure, it COULD work. You have to outlay the cash and be confident that you nailed the bottom, AND it comes back up before some newer, faster memory hits the market. You might also want to look at buying some options on a memory manufacturer.

 

[zephyrprime]

I think there could be real money made this way but it wouldn't be a wise investment since it's so risky.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Too risky... you'd be better off just starting a little store of your own for memory and buying in bulk and then just selling it...

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: acid16

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
i had a thought. wait and check prices everyday, read up on news, etc.. until prices for ddr drops to its lowest and begins to rise in price again. then buy lots of 512mb ddr266 or 333, don't open them, wait awhile, then sell em new on ebay. i know ram prices fluctuates but for now its no secret that its gonna keep going down for now. is this a wise "investment"??

Not really. After shipping costs calculate, plus the fact that stuff on ebay sells cheaper than retail..... and its somewhat risky. Prices would need to go up alot. If you do this, then go with high end ram for sure (pc3200 mainly). PC3200 is the way to go, since AMD will be releasing a 400mhz bus soon... and it will be the final switch. Dont go with pc2100, as it's dieing and will be dead soon 😉 But yeah, if you buy enough sticks then you can profit. Expect your profit to only be about $15 per stick though (if you're lucky) after ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping and blah blah blah. So you'd need to buy in huge volume to see a difference. So say you bought 100 sticks, that would be a profit of $1500. But then, you need to come up with the money to buy 100 sticks, which is ALOT (like $6000 or $7000 for 512mb sticks). Overall, it's not as easy as it sounds...... but you can try 😉

some points i gotta agree with, some i don't. stuff on ebay does not sell cheaper than retail. lots of idiots on ebay thinking they are getting a deal but in fact they can get better deals on newegg, but they don't know that. ie: do a search on ti4200 cards and see the final price for it, it'll most like be around 150 new maybe more for a higher end 4200 card. shipping costs they pay for, will be like 10 bucks max. but you are right, prices will need to go up a lot, and fast. when it goes up you need it fast so you don't have to wait as long since the ram may be more outdated more you wait. think ill be better off getting pc2700 since its not much more than 2100, 3200 is much more price premium. and even if say a buyer has 333ddr cpu, if the price is right compared to retail they will get ddr266. ebay fees arnt that bad, maybe around 5 bucks max. paypal, that is just an option, i have a good enough record to omit paypal if i want. and again shipping is 5 bucks max for a lightweight ram which they pay for. plus the ram will be sold NEW.

i know you suckas are gonna do this too. =) telling me its no good when you yourself are thinking about it. b/s. its all good though.

 

[stultus]

i know you suckas are gonna do this too. =) telling me its no good when you yourself are thinking about it. b/s. its all good though.

If you don't trust anyone here then why did you come here to ask for opinions? GL with your business venture, but it sounds a bit too risky for me.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: stultus

i know you suckas are gonna do this too. =) telling me its no good when you yourself are thinking about it. b/s. its all good though.

If you don't trust anyone here then why did you come here to ask for opinions? GL with your business venture, but it sounds a bit too risky for me.

well i was hoping that people will agree with my proposition and take my idea if they want, no probs. and notice the happy face at the end of the statement?? that means i was kidding around.

not really a business venture, just might buy a couple (3-5 ?) sticks and try to make small profit doing so if possible.

 

[logers]

3-5 is the right way to go imho. That's the way I built my latest gaming rig. I bought 15 panaflo fans when they were selling for a buck each. I sold 9 back on ebay for 2.00 ea. and paid for my 6 after all was said and done. I bought an entire sheet of lexan from my local plastics shop and cut it into 18" strips w/my table saw, then sold those with auto molding strips I cut from a spool I got from an auto body shop at wholesale. Made enough from that to purchase my second hard disk for the raid.

My point is...it's a good way to make *small* amounts of money safely. The risk comes when you've over-invested and haven't done enough market research.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: logers
3-5 is the right way to go imho. That's the way I built my latest gaming rig. I bought 15 panaflo fans when they were selling for a buck each. I sold 9 back on ebay for 2.00 ea. and paid for my 6 after all was said and done. I bought an entire sheet of lexan from my local plastics shop and cut it into 18" strips w/my table saw, then sold those with auto molding strips I cut from a spool I got from an auto body shop at wholesale. Made enough from that to purchase my second hard disk for the raid.

My point is...it's a good way to make *small* amounts of money safely. The risk comes when you've over-invested and haven't done enough market research.

thats awesome logers. but remember that your time is also money. i don't wanna spend two hours or whatever trying to sell fans, and make a 6 buck profit. but the story of the lexan strips are good if it gave you a HD. don't know how long that takes though. 🙂

 

[neilm]

This is kinda a seperate question.. but would you say that there is much difference between crucial and corsair ram? I'm sorta lost in which brand to go for the pc3200 modules (corsair is about £15 more expensive than the crucials 256mb).

Also, would you say now is the best time to buy ram or wait a little more?

 

[madthumbs]

Ram speeds seem to be going up too fast for an idea like this. I have at many occasions sold components on e*ay for far more than I paid for them. You'd have to rely on another disaster in asia to benefit from this kind of investment atm.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: madthumbs
Ram speeds seem to be going up too fast for an idea like this. I have at many occasions sold components on e*ay for far more than I paid for them. You'd have to rely on another disaster in asia to benefit from this kind of investment atm.

but you have to remember that most setups are now run in dual channel. canterwood and springdale at best will use two ddr400 in dual mode. and people still might buy ddr333 in pairs if ddr400 is still more price premium.
for athlon chipsets ddr 266 and 333 is sufficient and nforce2 supports dual channel as well. not quite sure what bus athlon64 is gonna be (400 i presume), most likely 64bit external bus, and most likely dual channel configuration.

therefore with dual channel, ddr266,333,400 will still have its place. when 1200 fsb comes out which is like next year, THEN higher speed memory will have its place, but not now, and not for the near future.

neilm: make your own thread

 

[bigshooter]

Why not just go get a part time job? I also don't know if the statement that most setups are dual channel now is quite correct. The nforce is the only dual channel mobo for Athlon, and you only really benefit from the dual channel if you use built in graphics. For p4, granite bay and the new sis chipset (if it has even been released not just launched) are the only current chips that support it as well. Once canterwood and springdale are released people will have to start buying ram in pairs, but right now there just isn't that much need for it. If prices go REALLY low, maybe snag some up and hope that the sudden rise in demand once dual channel boards come out raise retail prices. Other than that, it just sounds like it'd be a big pain in the ass to do.

 

[Lonyo]

Well, you can get some damned good RAM (speed wise) for hella cheap from online stores.
PC2700 CAS 2 for the equivelant of $40 for a 256MB stick. Prices have dropped in like the last week and a half it seems around 25%!
It's insane, buy now for future systems or to sell, because the move to DDR 2 seems to be far off, and if the stuff nowadays will work at 200MHz FSB (ready for the 800MHz QPB of the next P4's) then it's quite a deal to get it cheap 🙂

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
i had a thought. wait and check prices everyday, read up on news, etc.. until prices for ddr drops to its lowest and begins to rise in price again. then buy lots of 512mb ddr266 or 333, don't open them, wait awhile, then sell em new on ebay. i know ram prices fluctuates but for now its no secret that its gonna keep going down for now. is this a wise "investment"??

I've done it for the last few years just for bartering power on sales. I felt trapped when DDR came out and sold my last stick of 512 SDRAN just last mont...It is all good but remember when Higher speeds come out you 'll loose on the gain you planned not to mention if a new format comes along you'll just have RAM to upgrade systems...I like to buy extra of anything @ 1 good price but not to many as it like meat and greed...it spoils.

 

[jjyiz28]

lonyo, led: thats how i feel, buy now for future systems and/or sell. and ddr2 is comming out in what most likely 2005? way long off. ddr will continue to have its place, since in future, MBs will be run in dual channel for athlons and especially pentiums.