Educate me please

How do Dell Desktops Sell Cheaper on Ebay Than Dell dot com?

[ebound]

I'm not much of a hardware person. I'm looking to replace my old Dell desktop that I've been using for about 3 years. Basically, I am maxed out at 256 RAM on my current machine and need more.

So I look on Ebay and there are supposed, Brand New - Factory Sealed - Non Refurbished Dell desktops selling considerably cheaper than Dell offers them. Whats the deal here? How are these people able to do this? Has anyone ever bought something off Ebay like this?

Example:
On Ebay the Following Setup is selling for around $404 with shipping included.

Dell Dimension 3000
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 2.80 GHz
512MB DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
40GB (7200RPM) Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
48X CD-ROM Drive (1st Bay)
16X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write Drive (2nd Bay)
6 Ports USB 2.0 : (2 Front / 4 Back)
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet (LAN)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
No Monitor

On Dell dot com this same setup, with no monitor, is selling for around $600, not including shipping.

What gives?

[wheel]

There are two ways. The first is riding the specials on Dell. Dell's big on coupons and the like, and if you buy enough of them you can get some discounted pricing. So maybe they got some free memory, free hd upgrade, free shipping, then throw it on ebay for a few bucks more than they paid, and charge obscene shipping rates.

However, more likely they are shopping the Dell outlet. I've bought stuff from the outlet and you'd be hard pressed to tell if from new. More specifically, I'm suggesting that the terms of the auction (not-refurbished) may not be a precise description of the product you'll recieve.

[Frequent]

Not to mention that most manufacturers sell at MSRP (or close) direct to customers and let their dealers sell at any price they want. The dealer can make whatever profit they can, or even loose money if they want on any given sale. The theory being that dealers aren't going to bother selling a brand if they can't compete with or beat the manufacturers selling price. This may not be the case here, but it is a general rule.

Although, in this case, I'd say the dealer got a great "close out" deal on a bunch of units. The system quoted is not exactly "cutting edge."

Freq---

[ebound]

Thanks for the info.

The system quoted is not exactly "cutting edge."

What exactly would be considered cutting edge?

I don't play games, mainly just running my web develpment apps - dreamweaver, photoshop, 3-5 brower windows, email, dbase tools, music app, G Desktop search, etc.

Compared to what I currently run, the system above does seem cutting edge. ;)

Pentium 4 - 1.70 GHz - 256 MB RAM

[netscan]

Just install a 512M stick of RAM in the machine you have, it'll seem like brand new compared to choking it at 256