Hand Held Refurbished GPS systems Are Great Deals

Have you ever noticed that there seems to be a huge abundance of refurbished GPS devices for sale, especially at the big online retailers like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and Ebay.com? This shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone, automotive GPS navigation units are wildly popular and demand for them is going to be high, especially if they are cheap.

So why are there literally thousands, if not 10’s of thousands of refurbished GPS units on the market? Well, that brings us to the important points of WHY so many GPS devices (along with any electronic devices in general) end up being labeled 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. For one reason or another the product was sent back to the place of purchase, this generally indicates that the original owner of the product took advantage of the store’s return policy for one reason or another. In some circumstances the reason behind this return has nothing to do with the functionality or quality of the product; buyers remorse sets in and they decide they need to return the product.

2. The manufacturer created too many of the specific model and needs to get ride of some of their inventory to make room for more. When this happens, the store will either sell the product for a clearance price, or ship the GPS back to TomTom, Garmin, or Magellan; when the product is sent back to the manufacturer, the company has to decide what to do with the product – sometimes they just label it as refurbished after making sure it works, and then distribute the devices out again at greatly reduced prices. In some cases these “refurbed” products will have never been opened, meaning that the discount is for no reason at all.

3. It could be that the unit is left over because it was a “display model”. When this is the case, the product eventually gets sent back to the manufacturer; the producer checks out the navigation unit for any defects or damage and then sends it back out to be sold as a refurbished GPS.

4. The original owner of the product opened it but returned it because they didn’t like it. If this happens and the store doesn’t want to deal with the unit themselves they send it back to the manufacturer who reseals it and labels it 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. This can be pretty common depending on the batch of GPS navigation units. When a product has a defect or cosmetic damage it is sent back to the manufacturer for repair, and anything that they can find fault with and fix they do; when the process is complete, the product is literally brand new again, and some might content it is now actually less likely to become defective than the non refurbished products sitting on the shelves of the electronics outlets; they argue this because refurbished devices generally undergo a battery of tests.

As you can see, the reasons for a GPS to be refurbished are varied. 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.