u/Hot_Medicine_476

Seriously. Show up to a buyer with a clean console and a beat-up controller with stick drift and a broken bumper, and watch how fast they lowball you or walk. Show up with the same console and a controller that feels brand new — same price, completely different reaction. I started buying cheap controllers separately, cleaning them up or swapping sticks, and it changed the whole dynamic. The console itself is almost a commodity at this point. It's the controller that signals whether the previous owner cared about their stuff. Anyone else build this into their sourcing process or is most people just grabbing whatever?

I've tried sneakers, done some thrift store runs, messed around with electronics in general — and none of it has been as consistent as buying used consoles locally. Demand is always there, items are easy to test and inspect, and unlike sneakers you don't need to know every colorway ever released to not get burned. The margins aren't massive but the volume and reliability make up for it. Buy a PS4 for $50, clean it up, sell it for $100 — that's pretty repeatable if you're patient. Thrift flipping is romanticized way more than it deserves to be imo, half your time is spent sifting through garbage. Anyone else landed on consoles as their go-to category or is it just me?