leaknoil wrote:
so odd reading some posts here. 225 ukp for a pci card cage for a octane ? Really ? That is pure insanity. Dual 600 octanes don't fetch that here in the US.
You obviously don't get quotes from commercial SGI dealers (Cordnet happily sells dual-600 Octane2s for 5000 UKP).
225 UKP for a new, never-used PCI cage is a damn good price. I normally sell
used
cages for twice that much.
I've been badly underselling things this past year and it's cost me dearly, eg. I was selling quad-IP25 boards for 195 UKP, couldn't
work out why they were so popular, until I found out the 'normal' commercial value had risen to nearly 4X that much, ie. other
dealers had been using me as a cheap supplier to their own end customers, making a big markup in the process for free. I can
list dozens of other examples where hobbyists seem to have not the slightest idea how commercially valuable many items are.
See my numerous past posts on this subject here. Ironically, the companies which buy things from me think my prices are crazy low.
One company even complained to a different dealer that my Indy prices are too low because it made their accountants confused
re how expensive the systems were when first bought.
The perceived value separation some hobbyists have really is bizarre. Ask the various dealers for a quote, then get back to me.
The prices I've posted here are less than half what most dealers would charge, in most cases much less than half. If any are
doing better, it's because they have a big stock to ditch or don't care. I, however, am a 1-man operation and everything I sell
directly covers food, rent, taxes, bills and reinvesting for further sales. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for me, hobbyists worldwide
would have
no
quality/reliable source for SGI items
at all
. If everyone thought as you, I'd have to give this whole thing
up and do a 9-to-5, bye bye to the world of SGI. I work ruddy hard at this, often at the cost of my personal life, and financially
I'm no better off now than I was when I started 5 years ago, yet I struggle on because I think it's worthwhile.
And as others have said there's how I deal with items, packing, etc. If you want to use eBay, then there's a good chance your
O2 purchase will arrive looking like this (2 systems I bought recently from a guy in France):
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/o2s.zip
whereas if you buy from me, it'll arrive safe, mint, perfect, fully cleaned, with a mega install like nobody else does. Ask those who've
bought systems from me, if you want confirmation. You get what you pay for. See my
feedback pages
for numerous examples.
Here are some pics of typical boxes I've posted with O2s:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics ... ygdin2.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics ... o2box1.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics ... o2box2.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics ... esmet2.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics/markkirby1.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics/tanjashuh2.jpg
I don't try to compete with 'raw' eBay pricing because eBay is full of junk with people who've no idea how to pack stuff. Besides,
eBay is
not
a land of bargains anymore, those days are long gone. Check the listings, there are hardly any normal auctions
now for SGI items. It's mostly BIN.
Ian.
PS. Apologies for the rant, but sometimes this whole, "everything should be free!" mentality really gets on my wick when I'm doing
16-hour days to survive. I posted the above advert with huge discounts (typically half price) because for
2 weeks
from the end of
Nov I sold zilch due to the
bad weather
(I've done
32 hours
of
snow shoveling
during
that time
), ie. with the expense of xmas and the
next rent day approaching, I needed to get some pennies in. And btw, one guy is indeed buying a PCI cage, so QED.
Was there any release note regarding this feature? I remember an Indigo you sent to France and it took me ages to unpack…
