I’ve been searching for a used Thinkpad for so long, and the shipping price from the USA is ridiculously high between 80-120$, so I’ve been looking for any European options on eBay.

I came across a Thinkpad X395 from 2019, with AMD Ryzen 5 3500U, 16GB of RAM and a measly 265GB of space. On rough estimates, thus exact build will be sold for 150-250$ in the USA, plus the shipping cost. Now, this laptop is from Slovenia, at a whopping 900£, plus the 40-60£ shipping.

Now, what’s with this ridiculous pricing for an almost 6-year-old device? Are electronics sold in Slovenia so expensive that they are barely affected by yearly depreciation?

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    0·
    3 months ago

    I don’t think the European second hand market is quite as prolific as the American one. Prices stay up as a result.

    Many of these marketplaces are also full of companies putting their ads up, often offering new/nearly new products which will bring in significantly more than second hand stuff.

    Many countries have their own ebay alternatives as well, and in some places Facebook is the only place to get any deals on second hand stuff. Google suggests bolha.com is where Slovenians go for second hand stuff, for instance. Here’s a second hand ThinkPad for a much more reasonable price. Local second hand sites will often refuse to ship internationally, though, that’s something I’ve only seen done for expensive stuff (i.e. the price you were quoted). Personally, I see eBay as a website I would only ever visit if I wanted to import something cheap from the USA or maybe the UK.

    Another issue with laptops specifically is that many European countries have specific (non-US) keyboard layouts, reducing the supply. Compared to all ThinkPads sold, only a small amount of them have a dedicated Đ/đ key, so the price can stay up for longer than you may expect. Newer, faster hardware is nice, but it’s rather useless if you can’t type your name on it!