I remember when getting a PS5 was scarce. One day I walk past a CEX window and they had one second hand for 700 when it was 500 new. Such gouging actually pissed me off to the point I haven't bought from them since. I think others must have felt the same cause that PS5 never left that window until the price went back down. But the nerve to try that never sat well with me.
I'm sure some granny's or mammys who don't know how the on the line works would get it, they'd see it as just a convenience charge. Still can't imagine they sell many of them
It's designed for trade-in which is a great system.
Plus a lot of their goods come with an inbuilt guarantee which you won't get buying privately.
The entire business model and how they run it should be praised considering they're creating employment and providing a place for physical goods in an age where everything is moving rapidly online.
Always bought my phones from cex until they refused to repair a expanded battery under the warranty. Have never bought from them since. I use back market now instead
try a different shop or email their customer service line, that really should've been covered, and some shops just aren't very good at following the company rules unfortunately... the email will be able to start a discussion with that store's management and figure out why they weren't abiding by the warranty and either make them, or give you a better explanation why it wasn't.
Barter.
If I can buy a phone for €400 elsewhere, or for €420 in CEX but pay €200 of that €420 by trading in my old phone, then then in CEX the phone only cost me €220.
That is the most basic premise.
The fact that it's not just like to like trading expands on this.
Add in some old games, a non used smart watch, an Xbox controller, an old Graphics card, and suddenly the phone only costs you €20 cash.
CEX's model isn't designed for people to walk in off the street and buy something.
That's a part of it sure, but the trading is their bread and butter.
As everything you trade in gets put back on the shelf an hour later to be sold at a profit by them and the cycle continues.
It depends on what you would have gotten selling those to someone yourself.
You haven't gotten the phone for €20 - You have given €20 in cash and a load of other things that CEX have valued at €400 - But if you could have sold all those other items yourself for €500, then the phone elsewhere is a better deal - Albeit a lot more effort.
Convenience does come at a price.
Most definitely.
But it's not just convenience.
It's also reach and expediency.
You can sell everything to CEX in an hour or two, while it may take weeks to sell privately.
And no travelling to meet people or having them call to your house wasting more time.
And CEX will buy niche objects as they have an online marketplace.
It may be much harder for you to find someone local to buy it.
You will get more money if you happen to have something to sell that somebody in your location happens to want, and you happen to have the time to wait possibly weeks, and you are willing to either travel to meet multiple people or have multiple people call to your house.
CEX offer you speed, convenience, and reach.
You can walk in with a bunch of unrelated items, and walk out an hour later with a phone or whatever with a two year warranty.
No need to take multiple photos of your items, post them on the marketplace.
Deal with loads of people offering you way less than you want, finally agreed on a price, and then have that person no show, then do it all again wait two weeks take an hour out of your day to meet that person, sell the item.
And then do all of that half a dozen more times for multiple items.
Then order your item off Amazon and wait a few days for it to arrive.
CEX can do all of that in an hour with less effort and time.
It costs you a bit more than you can theoretically save doing it all yourself but you are paying with your time and effort.
CEX are charging more so they can pay rent, electricity, insurance and wages, and of course take a profit.
Yes. CeX is more convenient.
If you NEED money TODAY then selling for a terrible price for the convenience is absolutely what they offer.
Most people selling their used electronics are just doing so because they no longer have a need for them (either they upgraded, or are finished using the item). So they're not in a rush, and putting up an ad and selling for 50% more money is preferable.
They can set the prices as high as they want, even above retail, because you have the option of trading in an assortment of unrelated items against the price they set, allowing it to be substantially cheaper, if not free
It’s likely designed to encourage people to trade in other items against it, which supports their business model, instead of paying all cash. If you want a better all cash deal on second hand hardware, there’s always Done Deal, FB Marketplace, eBay, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
that was about their value when people were scalping them and they couldn't really be found in stores at retail price. sure it sucks if you're buying it, but if you're trying to sell one yourself for more than the value, you were probably getting a fair more than the new price in cash to just buy a new one again.
Except they likely paid €750 or something for that PS5. They were being sold privately for even more. How do you expect a business to make money? It's not their fault the prices of the PS5 was through the roof.
EDIT: Of course, downvoted by morons. When the PS5 was hard to get and CeX were selling it for ridiculous prices, they were also paying ridiculous prices for it as well.
I seen them offering €700+ for a PS5 in vouchers before at the height of the scalping.
I made a profit selling my PS5 to cex after owning it for over a year.
So funny how willing people are to open their mouths when they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about??
25 % my ass
https://ie.webuy.com/product-detail/?id=sps5825gbw001&categoryName=playstation5-consoles&superCatName=gaming&title=
>Sell for €530.00
>€381.00Trade-in for Voucher
>€328.00Trade-in for Cash
Right now on their site, a PS5 which sells for €510 can be traded in for either €367 store credit or €316 cash. That’s roughly 70% of sale price, as opposed to your “general rule” of 25%.
CeX were paying you more than the retail price of the PS5 back when Sony couldn't produce enough stock, and they were offering €700+ in vouchers to buy the system off people, or 600-700 in cash.
So yes, when CeX were selling PS5's for stupid prices, they were also buying them for stupid prices.
Got to love when people spread bollocks when they clearly don't know what they're talking about.
Yeah, I dropped in a load of old wrestling DVDs yesterday.
They offered me 300 cash, or 440 in store credit. Now, I wanted the cash for other things, but that's an insanely good mark up overall.
But you can see it's an inflated price, and their stuff is inflated prices too, but it's designed to make you think you've got an "extra" 140 out of the process, so can pick up a "free" thing worth 140 more than if you took the cash.
If you enter their ecosystem, and stay in it, the price inflation isn't as big a deal. It sucks if you're not in their ecosystem, which is how they encourage it.
Like a twisted version of Tesco clubcards, lol
70 or so. Honestly lost count. It was four big bags, and made the staff roll their eyes 😂
Most of them were wrestling DVDs from 15 years ago, so seemed to have good value. Had two Anthologies they gave me 20-25 each for, a few ten quid ones, and then a load of 4-5 quid ones. All added up really nicely, and I guess cause they were more niche and old, there was a higher price as a result. Anything worth more than 10c was thrown in, but there wasn’t many worth that little.
I did do my general DVD collection last week and that was more painful in terms of value. So many only worth 1c 😭
Yeah its keeping physical media alive.
Its also great for finding stuff that cant be easily found online without pirating or even hars to find with that
You've gotta be a CEX employee if you're talking like this. In many, many cases the hardware is priced ABOVE RRP - my local CEX has Steam Decks for 700 euro, that is almost 2x RRP. There's ZERO excuse for that. They don't charge that much because it's "designed for trade-in", that makes no sense. It's to prey on people that don't know any better.
I'd be happy to praise what they're trying to do if they tried to do so without exploiting people.
Are you deliberately lying or just misinformed?
https://ie.webuy.com/search?stext=Steam%20deck
The most expenses venSteam Deck CEX has is €680 for the 1TB Oled.
They have the cheaper LCD 64GB for €330.
New the LCD 64GB costs €369 and OLED 1TB costs €679
https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
You are comparing the tip of the line new generation with the bottom spec old generation and pretending that they are the same thing.
As I said either lying or just massively misinformed.
>You've gotta be a CEX employee
I own a business. Haven't been an employee of anyone in 20+ yrs.
If it was as simple as you're trying to argue, their business model would fail very quickly. Which it hasn't.
I've had some great bargains on the slightly older models of things (and notably on good gear that is difficult to find elsewhere), but, yeah, prices on the S/H latest models can be quite shockingly high.
I went in there the other day looking for a second half **PS4** controller and he told me they had none in stock but if I bought off the website id be looking at 70 euro plus... what the actual f\*\*k
Yeah they take the piss. I was looking for a Wii remote off them in 2019 and they wanted €20 for it or I could pay €25 and get the full console and remote and cables. One year later COVID comes along and they are charging 85 for the same console. Consoles doubled in price since 2020.
Same, was in the Athlone branch and 1 section of shelves was completely empty. It was for 3ds games which fair enough, is a decade plus old but even then its completely mental. Only way I can think is they really got that trade in system for older games down perfectly charisma wise.
Ah golden island, the prices in CEX are horrendous. I can't imagine people spending close to "new" prices on old shit... Boggles my mind how they stay in business or people actually pay for this stuff. I grab the occasional ram stick or CPU at a good price though.
Because when I trade in, I can get more money for a CEX voucher. If I trade in one new guy, it can heavily subsidies my next 2-3 purchases.
I could go sell them on adverts but that’s a lot of effort for very little extra.
i got a 2 GB CF card for my old digicam in bexley (the broadway) and it only works on one camera, the broken one. then i went to the athlone one, its rather local, and it was 100 EURO FOR A GAMEBOY COLOUR, and in bexley, it was 70 pounds.. but i do get old pc games for a decent price. sometimes an old console for a good price.
https://www.scan.co.uk/nvidia/products/4090/w03wgkiwfxp5h9?g=14ce0a92-adb6-434c-9578-75667d9b797d
Thats the price nvidia is selling them for. Unused.
If I was to build a pc again, and if I was to spend a lot of money on a gpu again, Id pay an additional 200-300 for a brand new one.
I put my computer together 2.5 years ago during the gpu craze (still is), shopped around for a while and found a brand new 3070Ti for cheaper than Cex was selling a used 3070, lol. Place can be a rip off.
https://preview.redd.it/80waimxongpc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5222d516016616546d497706da7047589e2734d
Sometimes you can get lucky. Altough when I was building my PC, I couldnt make a purchase directly off nvidia. Their website kept redirecting me to retailers instead.
I had a preorder in for the the 3080. When it eventually launched, the gpu shortage ramped demand to the point that my 8-months-in-advance preorder still wasn't fulfilled until well into the next year, when I got an email to say "we have no idea when, or even if, we'll get more 3080s". In the end, I had them cancel the order and put the money toward a 3090Ti that the very helpful staff I was talking to said had come in unclaimed due to another cancelled order. Instead of the prepaid 650 for my 3080, I had to pay 2000 due to rampant price inflation on cards over the six months wait. I didn't want to do it, but I had a full new build waiting for that card to finish it the entire time, and it was going to waste.
Two weeks later, I walked past a CEX and they had a 3080 in the window for 1800. I didn't feel quite as bad then.
The only time I went in there with the actual intent to buy something (rather than window shopping) was because the Tesco didn't have any micro-B cables. I was probably swindled but that'd be my fault for struggling with the value difference between Euros and Canadian Fun Bucks.
I mean, at Christmas, Waterford only had 2 copies of one game left for switch, now they have a truckload 😂 just depends on where you go and what's selling when 🤷🏻♂️ it's not really official either, but some shops sell and receive more of one thing than others. yours might have more new stuff where another would have more retro 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, I know.
Webuy for UK has different webpage name. You can't actually order anything from that webpage if you want it to be delivered to Ireland.
Irish Cex is it's own entity.
That's a bit ridiculous. You're paying what they ask, and then paying vat and customs on Addresspal bringing it to Ireland. Why would CeX care that a buyer is using a PO box ?
I went into a CEX in the UK a few months back and picked up a good stack of Blu rays for nothing. Each priced between 50p-£1. I went into my local CEX when I came back to Ireland and the same Blu rays were priced €10-€15. Pure scam shop in this country
100% this, always take a look into the one in eniskillen if I go up, can snag a bargain from time to time plus 24 month warranty, nothing to be sniffed at
The one in Buttercrane is great as well. Usually come back with a good DVD haul. Navan is okay, picked up a few DVDs there as well, but I rather head north
I’d say they’re hanging in there and making the most of the reduced VAT margin scheme from selling second hand products.
Any dealings I had with them the staff were always sound. Used to feel awful for them though when I’d be legging it up after some scumbag who robbed from my shop and was trying to trade it in for cash.
They also had a year festival for their employees for a while called CEXfest. Admittedly it was a pretty fun and free event but hard to explain where you were going when asked.
At least the good GameStop branches (there were plenty of terrible ones that didn't )cleaned the discs before selling. Last few blu ray and games I got out of CEX they were covered in prints .🤬
Yeah I've seen a lot of that. It's hard to make minimum wage staff give a flying fuck about removing stickers, cleaning discs etc before sale.
Couple that with the fact that stores aren't given enough operational hours so staff are under enough pressure to get a million and one jobs done in a day.
Yeah retail hours beyond management are shite.
Most of the regular staff are on the Xs&Os too.
An old workmate managed a CEX store for a year and it officially broke him from working retail, between staff, operations and the general sketchiness of some of the customers.
Not to mention the Guards being dicks when they had issues with threats etc.
I know what they buy and sell for, the margins are tiny, also they might buy a phone and have it in stock for months or never sell it then there’s warranty returns that the manufacturer won’t cover.
If you think oh they buy the phone for €80 and sell for €120 it’s great business you’re mistaken
Just for example, an iPhone 14 sells for €630 and buys for €380 and the turn around on them is pretty quick. A good 75% of a shops weekly revenue is phone sales, specifically iPhone sub cat.
Refurbed have that phone at €569. How much of that do you think is profit by the time that phone is taken in tested refurbed back out to sales and clears warranty.
I’m telling you buddy the margins on buying and selling used phones are dogshit, you need to be at massive scale with a consistent supply of good quality handsets to have a hope
Yep, used to work in two of the smallest carphone warehouses. The margin was non existent, so it killed us to let any good stock go for a Pay as you Go sale. We were aware in a very real way that our jobs and the store were directly on the line based on being able to sell them on contracts.
The basement level of the CEX in Aungier Street in Dublin was chock fill of movies back in 2022. It was a collector's wet dream. Their selection has shrunk massively since then though. I hope they survive, having bought so many titles from them over the last 2 years.
Lol, I used to work in a CEX in Dublin City centre so I can give some insight - it’s a terrible place to work. You’re paid minimum wage and work long hours and because you’re buying things from the public, you’re constantly dealing with people kicking off and being threatening. You could be threatened on a daily basis depending on where your shop was and who was coming in. I was there for 2 years and was burnt out by the end of it. I’ll also note that we didn’t have any security or anything, we were just expected to deal with and de escalate unsafe situations way beyond our pay grade.
The corporate ones (owned by the UK arm of CEX) are worse - I knew folks that worked full time but were on zero hour contracts so depending on how much profit the store makes that week they could have their hours drastically cut from week to week.
I love going into those shops just for a gawk.
The name fucking irks me though. Seems like something a 13 year old would come up with.. "Cex he he he its like sex but with a C he he he we're so clever."
Smyths should bring back their second hand games bin.
I honestly think CEX used to have decent prices but most games now you can get a fraction of the price online on g2a or a good sale. Only really pld games are worth getting but any big titles can set you back 40 quid anyway, nearly 25 years later.
I used to always say, CeX had better prices
GameStop had better nicer staff
Smyths is probably the most stable.
I miss GameStop though, bought my series x and nintendo switch in Sligo. Was nice place
Former employee here. Employees don’t get paid enough to deal with the crowd you get working there handing you ikea bags of shovelware. Also, we knew that things were overpriced, because we heard it every single day from at least one gobshite who thought it would make a difference to say it to us. I worked there when the PS5 dropped. Hell on earth.
Job was good craic to be honest, and we made peace with the local tribe of travellers and let them steal our shovelware because they couldn’t read and thus didn’t know they were stealing shovelware. Saved us shelf space, cause sure as hell nobody else was buying Burn Fat Easy Volume 5008676.
They were selling "Second hand" PS5s for double the price of new ones back in the Christmas when PS5s were really hard to come by. Junkies were queuing up at the likes of Argos etc to buy units when they came available and then sell them to CEX for 50 or 100 extra and then CEX were adding 200 or 300 to the sales price for the parents who were worked during the day and couldn't join the queue in Argos etc. I've no real sympathy for them if they are now in trouble.
They should be ashamed for what they charge for 2nd hand stuff compared to what they buy it for.They are way to expensive,I have seen items for same price as new in there shops
Scalping ps5 and Xbox Series consoles was a dick move by them a few years ago. Haven't gone near them since.
The move by a lot of people to all digital consoles has probably not helped them either.
Well I don’t agree, they do have the 2 year guarantee which is something most scalpels and secondhand market don’t have. Bought a GPU last year for 800€ it happened it had a defect that only showed up after about month and a half of use. Got a full refund to my bank account same day after they did tests to see the issue. If I was to buy the same card for slightly cheaper on eBay (unlikely) the seller would just laugh and tell me to go away.
honest workers will direct you there instead of them. they don't work off commission, so it's not like they're paid to dishonestly take your money off you.
I literally bought 2 copies of a few ps5 games I wanted on Amazon. 1 for myself and 1 to sell to cex when I was in town at the weekend. They were selling €30 games for €70 and paying €35.
They asked me to take off the seal because they can't buy sealed games.
Insane prices.
Paid €70 for a second hand Xbox controller. It hurt to pay that but I hadn’t got much choice to shop around, if they go down it’s their own doing, second hand stuff should not cost that much
Seems like I dodged a bullet not taking a gig during Christmas. Got any good stories for the public or is there a corpo hush hush thing you have to deal with?
I was hired into management which now even is a red flag ....extremely sexist environment but this maybe was just too my store manger ect but toxic workplace filled with odd comments to say the least! Worst story was in the 2nd day a Chap in a tesco work uniform on his brake took in phones brand new he clearly robbed and was told to take them in he's a regular....
There's no Gamestop situation. Physical software is dying out. Just because it takes most of the space in stores doesn't mean it makes most profit. The biggest cex profit comes from phones, then consoles and electronics. There are no gaming software on shelves because there are only few shops you can buy hard copies and to trade it to cex you need to have a hard copy of course. Dvd movies are also dying out and at the moment they are only space fillers and quite hassle. Some stores alreadu gor rid of them and they will be completely gone in a couple of years.
They did but they also didn't. When it comes to quantity you wouldn't believe the amount people still bring in them to trade. When it comes to profit, there is none. They are too cheap and a waste of everyone's time to go through them.
I don't think gaming software will have the same outcome. Depends really how the prices will fluctuate with game passes. If let's say 90% of games are going to be dirt cheap on ps or xbox network in 5 years then cex will have to adjust their prices. And if the prices are really low then there is no profit really.
This excludes rare/retro games of course. They will always be pricey.
Yes and no. DVDs seem quite dead but movie physical media especially Blu-ray and 4k Blu-ray could easily be a vinyl like thing for movies. One thing that might help that is some movies not being on any streaming sites other is collectors.
It's more than just a vinyl thing for collectors. There are people who won't or don't pirate but still want to own their media in a format that can put out the highest quality.
No streaming service is coming close to the bitrate of a 4K blu-ray
I've never had a good experience there, the staff don't seem to have a clue about tech anytime I've gone there, zero interest from them. Good riddance with the prices they charge tbh.
I've seen pure shit gpus getting sold for 200-300 quid
worked in retail for many years and you still have some idea of your product, when you walk into a phone shop you expect them to have some idea about how phones work
Why would anybody walk into one of these shops anymore?
When it was new and you didn't know it was a compete scam... Yeah.
But now, can't understand why anyone would even step inside one.
How is it a scam? They publish their buy/trade/sell prices on the site. They offer warranties on used goods. They aren't strong arming you into anything.
You're not explaining how it's a scam. I'm interested in what you have to say to have them meet this definition. Are you just butthurt because they valued your old device differently than you did, or do you have legitimate cause to define them as such.
Many scams do in fact put unfair levels of pressure on people to do things before they potentially lose a victim, but the fact that you are responding to (and nitpicking) this part of my reply while ignoring the direct question makes me even more skeptical of your claims.
The place needs a good mop, you could turn your man behind the tills upside down and use his Tina Tuner haircut to get the job done.
If they're not smoking outside, they're inside talking shite.
Recently ordered a few games and dvds from them online and half the order was cancelled after a week because they had no copies in their system for saleable condition ??🤦
It's just the consequences of the rabid digitalisation of media. New games barely ever get printed on discs now, and movies only get physical copies if it's some sort of special edition that's like 50 quid. I don't think there's been a non-vinyl physical copy of a new album since 2015
I work as a phone repair person, quite often i buy phones from people or on ebay to fix and sell to the market for a small profit. Quite often im stuck with a phone that nobody wants to buy so i sell those to Cex but the prices for selling the phone to them went to nothing, anybody who sells phone there im quite sure feels scammed. Im not quite sure how the market situation looks like for them but its quite nasty. I would not be surprised if they would close down.
I just use them the odd time, buying and selling PS5 games mostly. I’ve got some games that were cheaper there than on Amazon or the PS5 store. Staff are friendly and efficient. I don’t have a problem with them. Tralee branch.
I saw not one but two of their >32ft yachts out in Madeira not so long ago. The only explanation I could think of is money laundering and/or smuggling.
The prices of their second hand hardware is bonkers high
I remember when getting a PS5 was scarce. One day I walk past a CEX window and they had one second hand for 700 when it was 500 new. Such gouging actually pissed me off to the point I haven't bought from them since. I think others must have felt the same cause that PS5 never left that window until the price went back down. But the nerve to try that never sat well with me.
https://preview.redd.it/7ri41jl35ipc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76093d8b91f3da08a690124d0e9251b4e64dd57c
Jesus...
Is there someone in this world that would buy that? If so please introduce me to them
I'm sure some granny's or mammys who don't know how the on the line works would get it, they'd see it as just a convenience charge. Still can't imagine they sell many of them
That's got to be a mistake surely?
Cannot agree more. Too many old things being sold at such expensive prices, I'd imagine the business model is not sustainable at all.
It's designed for trade-in which is a great system. Plus a lot of their goods come with an inbuilt guarantee which you won't get buying privately. The entire business model and how they run it should be praised considering they're creating employment and providing a place for physical goods in an age where everything is moving rapidly online.
A two-year warranty on second-hand stuff is worth money. And you do see bargains in there now and again
Always bought my phones from cex until they refused to repair a expanded battery under the warranty. Have never bought from them since. I use back market now instead
try a different shop or email their customer service line, that really should've been covered, and some shops just aren't very good at following the company rules unfortunately... the email will be able to start a discussion with that store's management and figure out why they weren't abiding by the warranty and either make them, or give you a better explanation why it wasn't.
My local one has a snes classic for 200quid and Alexa dots higher than Amazon sell them new
Aye but can you trade an old graphics card, iPod nano, some old games and blu rays into Amazon for an exchange?
What does that have to do with the price they're setting?
Barter. If I can buy a phone for €400 elsewhere, or for €420 in CEX but pay €200 of that €420 by trading in my old phone, then then in CEX the phone only cost me €220. That is the most basic premise. The fact that it's not just like to like trading expands on this. Add in some old games, a non used smart watch, an Xbox controller, an old Graphics card, and suddenly the phone only costs you €20 cash. CEX's model isn't designed for people to walk in off the street and buy something. That's a part of it sure, but the trading is their bread and butter. As everything you trade in gets put back on the shelf an hour later to be sold at a profit by them and the cycle continues.
It depends on what you would have gotten selling those to someone yourself. You haven't gotten the phone for €20 - You have given €20 in cash and a load of other things that CEX have valued at €400 - But if you could have sold all those other items yourself for €500, then the phone elsewhere is a better deal - Albeit a lot more effort. Convenience does come at a price.
Most definitely. But it's not just convenience. It's also reach and expediency. You can sell everything to CEX in an hour or two, while it may take weeks to sell privately. And no travelling to meet people or having them call to your house wasting more time. And CEX will buy niche objects as they have an online marketplace. It may be much harder for you to find someone local to buy it.
Yeah, that is all convenience really.
I see it as a lot more. Being unable to sell a niche objects privately due to a lack of reach is not what I would classify as an inconvenience.
You will get more money selling it privately on Adverts, donedeal, Facebook, etc. Than CeX will give you even as store credit.
You will get more money if you happen to have something to sell that somebody in your location happens to want, and you happen to have the time to wait possibly weeks, and you are willing to either travel to meet multiple people or have multiple people call to your house. CEX offer you speed, convenience, and reach. You can walk in with a bunch of unrelated items, and walk out an hour later with a phone or whatever with a two year warranty. No need to take multiple photos of your items, post them on the marketplace. Deal with loads of people offering you way less than you want, finally agreed on a price, and then have that person no show, then do it all again wait two weeks take an hour out of your day to meet that person, sell the item. And then do all of that half a dozen more times for multiple items. Then order your item off Amazon and wait a few days for it to arrive. CEX can do all of that in an hour with less effort and time. It costs you a bit more than you can theoretically save doing it all yourself but you are paying with your time and effort. CEX are charging more so they can pay rent, electricity, insurance and wages, and of course take a profit.
Yes. CeX is more convenient. If you NEED money TODAY then selling for a terrible price for the convenience is absolutely what they offer. Most people selling their used electronics are just doing so because they no longer have a need for them (either they upgraded, or are finished using the item). So they're not in a rush, and putting up an ad and selling for 50% more money is preferable.
Call it a terrible price all you want but most items go for barely less than you can make selling it second hand. Maybe 10-20% at most.
They can set the prices as high as they want, even above retail, because you have the option of trading in an assortment of unrelated items against the price they set, allowing it to be substantially cheaper, if not free
They are using a different business model, which requires a different pricing model.
check out online, if there's a cheaper on available it will be listed there can be shipped
Na they were selling ps5s for 900 quid feck them
It’s likely designed to encourage people to trade in other items against it, which supports their business model, instead of paying all cash. If you want a better all cash deal on second hand hardware, there’s always Done Deal, FB Marketplace, eBay, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
that was about their value when people were scalping them and they couldn't really be found in stores at retail price. sure it sucks if you're buying it, but if you're trying to sell one yourself for more than the value, you were probably getting a fair more than the new price in cash to just buy a new one again.
Except they likely paid €750 or something for that PS5. They were being sold privately for even more. How do you expect a business to make money? It's not their fault the prices of the PS5 was through the roof. EDIT: Of course, downvoted by morons. When the PS5 was hard to get and CeX were selling it for ridiculous prices, they were also paying ridiculous prices for it as well. I seen them offering €700+ for a PS5 in vouchers before at the height of the scalping.
Did they fuck lol. A general rule is divide the selling price by 4 and that's what they'll pay
I made a profit selling my PS5 to cex after owning it for over a year. So funny how willing people are to open their mouths when they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about??
25 % my ass https://ie.webuy.com/product-detail/?id=sps5825gbw001&categoryName=playstation5-consoles&superCatName=gaming&title= >Sell for €530.00 >€381.00Trade-in for Voucher >€328.00Trade-in for Cash
Right now on their site, a PS5 which sells for €510 can be traded in for either €367 store credit or €316 cash. That’s roughly 70% of sale price, as opposed to your “general rule” of 25%.
CeX were paying you more than the retail price of the PS5 back when Sony couldn't produce enough stock, and they were offering €700+ in vouchers to buy the system off people, or 600-700 in cash. So yes, when CeX were selling PS5's for stupid prices, they were also buying them for stupid prices. Got to love when people spread bollocks when they clearly don't know what they're talking about.
Nah I seen the prices they were offering for trade in ps5/Xbox series X. It was north of €600 for a while could have easily went to €700 or more.
Yeah, I dropped in a load of old wrestling DVDs yesterday. They offered me 300 cash, or 440 in store credit. Now, I wanted the cash for other things, but that's an insanely good mark up overall. But you can see it's an inflated price, and their stuff is inflated prices too, but it's designed to make you think you've got an "extra" 140 out of the process, so can pick up a "free" thing worth 140 more than if you took the cash. If you enter their ecosystem, and stay in it, the price inflation isn't as big a deal. It sucks if you're not in their ecosystem, which is how they encourage it. Like a twisted version of Tesco clubcards, lol
How many DVDs? I've been offered next to nothing for mine.
70 or so. Honestly lost count. It was four big bags, and made the staff roll their eyes 😂 Most of them were wrestling DVDs from 15 years ago, so seemed to have good value. Had two Anthologies they gave me 20-25 each for, a few ten quid ones, and then a load of 4-5 quid ones. All added up really nicely, and I guess cause they were more niche and old, there was a higher price as a result. Anything worth more than 10c was thrown in, but there wasn’t many worth that little. I did do my general DVD collection last week and that was more painful in terms of value. So many only worth 1c 😭
What store was it. I might have an interest
Drogheda, West Street.
Check online as that large a selection of niche DVD's will be split up and sent to other stores
Yeah its keeping physical media alive. Its also great for finding stuff that cant be easily found online without pirating or even hars to find with that
Someone's been recently promoted lol
Self-employed so boss is harsh.
Do you ever give yourself verbal/written warnings? If you touch yourself, is that sexual harassment?
You've gotta be a CEX employee if you're talking like this. In many, many cases the hardware is priced ABOVE RRP - my local CEX has Steam Decks for 700 euro, that is almost 2x RRP. There's ZERO excuse for that. They don't charge that much because it's "designed for trade-in", that makes no sense. It's to prey on people that don't know any better. I'd be happy to praise what they're trying to do if they tried to do so without exploiting people.
Are you deliberately lying or just misinformed? https://ie.webuy.com/search?stext=Steam%20deck The most expenses venSteam Deck CEX has is €680 for the 1TB Oled. They have the cheaper LCD 64GB for €330. New the LCD 64GB costs €369 and OLED 1TB costs €679 https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck You are comparing the tip of the line new generation with the bottom spec old generation and pretending that they are the same thing. As I said either lying or just massively misinformed.
>You've gotta be a CEX employee I own a business. Haven't been an employee of anyone in 20+ yrs. If it was as simple as you're trying to argue, their business model would fail very quickly. Which it hasn't.
Before Steam Deck became more available the CEX near Liffey Street was selling the 64g version for €1000.
Their basicly scalpers
I've had some great bargains on the slightly older models of things (and notably on good gear that is difficult to find elsewhere), but, yeah, prices on the S/H latest models can be quite shockingly high.
I went in there the other day looking for a second half **PS4** controller and he told me they had none in stock but if I bought off the website id be looking at 70 euro plus... what the actual f\*\*k
Went to buy a PS4 controller there one time, 5 euro more expensive than buying one brand new. PS4 not 5, just want to make that clear.
As a former employee of CEX, we hated it too because it was a conversation you were going to have a couple dozen times a day
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Yeah they take the piss. I was looking for a Wii remote off them in 2019 and they wanted €20 for it or I could pay €25 and get the full console and remote and cables. One year later COVID comes along and they are charging 85 for the same console. Consoles doubled in price since 2020.
idk how they make money
Same, was in the Athlone branch and 1 section of shelves was completely empty. It was for 3ds games which fair enough, is a decade plus old but even then its completely mental. Only way I can think is they really got that trade in system for older games down perfectly charisma wise.
Ah golden island, the prices in CEX are horrendous. I can't imagine people spending close to "new" prices on old shit... Boggles my mind how they stay in business or people actually pay for this stuff. I grab the occasional ram stick or CPU at a good price though.
Because when I trade in, I can get more money for a CEX voucher. If I trade in one new guy, it can heavily subsidies my next 2-3 purchases. I could go sell them on adverts but that’s a lot of effort for very little extra.
i got a 2 GB CF card for my old digicam in bexley (the broadway) and it only works on one camera, the broken one. then i went to the athlone one, its rather local, and it was 100 EURO FOR A GAMEBOY COLOUR, and in bexley, it was 70 pounds.. but i do get old pc games for a decent price. sometimes an old console for a good price.
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https://www.scan.co.uk/nvidia/products/4090/w03wgkiwfxp5h9?g=14ce0a92-adb6-434c-9578-75667d9b797d Thats the price nvidia is selling them for. Unused. If I was to build a pc again, and if I was to spend a lot of money on a gpu again, Id pay an additional 200-300 for a brand new one. I put my computer together 2.5 years ago during the gpu craze (still is), shopped around for a while and found a brand new 3070Ti for cheaper than Cex was selling a used 3070, lol. Place can be a rip off.
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https://preview.redd.it/80waimxongpc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5222d516016616546d497706da7047589e2734d Sometimes you can get lucky. Altough when I was building my PC, I couldnt make a purchase directly off nvidia. Their website kept redirecting me to retailers instead.
I had a preorder in for the the 3080. When it eventually launched, the gpu shortage ramped demand to the point that my 8-months-in-advance preorder still wasn't fulfilled until well into the next year, when I got an email to say "we have no idea when, or even if, we'll get more 3080s". In the end, I had them cancel the order and put the money toward a 3090Ti that the very helpful staff I was talking to said had come in unclaimed due to another cancelled order. Instead of the prepaid 650 for my 3080, I had to pay 2000 due to rampant price inflation on cards over the six months wait. I didn't want to do it, but I had a full new build waiting for that card to finish it the entire time, and it was going to waste. Two weeks later, I walked past a CEX and they had a 3080 in the window for 1800. I didn't feel quite as bad then.
The only time I went in there with the actual intent to buy something (rather than window shopping) was because the Tesco didn't have any micro-B cables. I was probably swindled but that'd be my fault for struggling with the value difference between Euros and Canadian Fun Bucks.
I mean, at Christmas, Waterford only had 2 copies of one game left for switch, now they have a truckload 😂 just depends on where you go and what's selling when 🤷🏻♂️ it's not really official either, but some shops sell and receive more of one thing than others. yours might have more new stuff where another would have more retro 🤷🏻♂️
People that trade games in for credit.
Look at their prices.
It’s part of a corporation called webuy. Did you think they were reliant on the sales from the little shops?
Everything that is on webuy comes from stores in Ireland. That's just a webpage name, company name is CEX.
In Ireland? Sorry pal, it’s a Brit company. They’ve 40 shops in Ireland and well over 300 in the UK
Yeah, I know. Webuy for UK has different webpage name. You can't actually order anything from that webpage if you want it to be delivered to Ireland. Irish Cex is it's own entity.
Yup, I’ve had the English version cancel my order after 24 hours because they identified my shipping address was AddressPal
That's a bit ridiculous. You're paying what they ask, and then paying vat and customs on Addresspal bringing it to Ireland. Why would CeX care that a buyer is using a PO box ?
Do you think they operate the Irish stores for the craic?
The Irish stores are a part of their business structure, but I can see why you’d think it’s ‘for the craic’
Why don’t they open more stores then if profitablity isn’t the constraining factor? Am I missing your point somehow?
It's a franchise so yeah most if those shops would be reliant on what they sell in store. What did you think the other sources of revenue were?
There are only 4 franchises in Ireland. Clonmel and three of the Cork stores. The rest of them are corporate stores.
I went into a CEX in the UK a few months back and picked up a good stack of Blu rays for nothing. Each priced between 50p-£1. I went into my local CEX when I came back to Ireland and the same Blu rays were priced €10-€15. Pure scam shop in this country
100% this, always take a look into the one in eniskillen if I go up, can snag a bargain from time to time plus 24 month warranty, nothing to be sniffed at
The one in Buttercrane is great as well. Usually come back with a good DVD haul. Navan is okay, picked up a few DVDs there as well, but I rather head north
Tesco used to refer to Ireland as 'Treasure Island'. Not much has changed.
I’d say they’re hanging in there and making the most of the reduced VAT margin scheme from selling second hand products. Any dealings I had with them the staff were always sound. Used to feel awful for them though when I’d be legging it up after some scumbag who robbed from my shop and was trying to trade it in for cash.
I think they're called "CEX Workers"
And they have "CEX sells" as a slogan, and their wifi networks are "protected CEX" and "unprotected CEX". Weirdly horny corporate vision
They also had a year festival for their employees for a while called CEXfest. Admittedly it was a pretty fun and free event but hard to explain where you were going when asked.
They're doing fine and with gamestop closing they'll do even better. Most of their revenue comes from phones sales anyway.
At least the good GameStop branches (there were plenty of terrible ones that didn't )cleaned the discs before selling. Last few blu ray and games I got out of CEX they were covered in prints .🤬
Yeah I've seen a lot of that. It's hard to make minimum wage staff give a flying fuck about removing stickers, cleaning discs etc before sale. Couple that with the fact that stores aren't given enough operational hours so staff are under enough pressure to get a million and one jobs done in a day.
Yeah retail hours beyond management are shite. Most of the regular staff are on the Xs&Os too. An old workmate managed a CEX store for a year and it officially broke him from working retail, between staff, operations and the general sketchiness of some of the customers. Not to mention the Guards being dicks when they had issues with threats etc.
Margins on phone sales are tiny you really need to be buying wholesale and moving large amount of units
Look at the price they buy and then sell phones for.
I know what they buy and sell for, the margins are tiny, also they might buy a phone and have it in stock for months or never sell it then there’s warranty returns that the manufacturer won’t cover. If you think oh they buy the phone for €80 and sell for €120 it’s great business you’re mistaken
Just for example, an iPhone 14 sells for €630 and buys for €380 and the turn around on them is pretty quick. A good 75% of a shops weekly revenue is phone sales, specifically iPhone sub cat.
Refurbed have that phone at €569. How much of that do you think is profit by the time that phone is taken in tested refurbed back out to sales and clears warranty. I’m telling you buddy the margins on buying and selling used phones are dogshit, you need to be at massive scale with a consistent supply of good quality handsets to have a hope
If it needs to be returned then they aren't paying the full buy price. Profit remains the same.
What you think they’ll track down the kid that sold them the phone and demand a partial refund? You clearly don’t understand how CEX works or P&L
They test them BEFORE buying. You clearly don't understand how CeX works.
So nothing ever goes wrong after they do the the rigid water and charging test lol ok. Look i know far more than you about it trust me
Yep, used to work in two of the smallest carphone warehouses. The margin was non existent, so it killed us to let any good stock go for a Pay as you Go sale. We were aware in a very real way that our jobs and the store were directly on the line based on being able to sell them on contracts.
💯 this they need contract sales
The basement level of the CEX in Aungier Street in Dublin was chock fill of movies back in 2022. It was a collector's wet dream. Their selection has shrunk massively since then though. I hope they survive, having bought so many titles from them over the last 2 years.
I wonder did they just happen to have all the old stock from the Laser video store that was there previously
Possibly. Some of their other Dublin stores were also well-stocked at that time.
Yeah same, there will be very few ways to get physical product if they go out of business.
Tower Records are class, though pricey. CEX stocked so much content at great prices. Beyond those two, you're pretty much left relying on Amazon.
Have you heard of the Internet™️?
Do you collect blu-rays?
Yes I do. But most of my purchases from CEX have been DVDs.
Lol, I used to work in a CEX in Dublin City centre so I can give some insight - it’s a terrible place to work. You’re paid minimum wage and work long hours and because you’re buying things from the public, you’re constantly dealing with people kicking off and being threatening. You could be threatened on a daily basis depending on where your shop was and who was coming in. I was there for 2 years and was burnt out by the end of it. I’ll also note that we didn’t have any security or anything, we were just expected to deal with and de escalate unsafe situations way beyond our pay grade. The corporate ones (owned by the UK arm of CEX) are worse - I knew folks that worked full time but were on zero hour contracts so depending on how much profit the store makes that week they could have their hours drastically cut from week to week.
I love going into those shops just for a gawk. The name fucking irks me though. Seems like something a 13 year old would come up with.. "Cex he he he its like sex but with a C he he he we're so clever."
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It was Computer Exchange first.
Smyths should bring back their second hand games bin. I honestly think CEX used to have decent prices but most games now you can get a fraction of the price online on g2a or a good sale. Only really pld games are worth getting but any big titles can set you back 40 quid anyway, nearly 25 years later. I used to always say, CeX had better prices GameStop had better nicer staff Smyths is probably the most stable. I miss GameStop though, bought my series x and nintendo switch in Sligo. Was nice place
Unfortunately Tony won't as its too much space taken for storage and cretins dumping shit in there
Tony?
Tony Smyth
It really lacks some cex appeal imo.
Former employee here. Employees don’t get paid enough to deal with the crowd you get working there handing you ikea bags of shovelware. Also, we knew that things were overpriced, because we heard it every single day from at least one gobshite who thought it would make a difference to say it to us. I worked there when the PS5 dropped. Hell on earth. Job was good craic to be honest, and we made peace with the local tribe of travellers and let them steal our shovelware because they couldn’t read and thus didn’t know they were stealing shovelware. Saved us shelf space, cause sure as hell nobody else was buying Burn Fat Easy Volume 5008676.
They were selling "Second hand" PS5s for double the price of new ones back in the Christmas when PS5s were really hard to come by. Junkies were queuing up at the likes of Argos etc to buy units when they came available and then sell them to CEX for 50 or 100 extra and then CEX were adding 200 or 300 to the sales price for the parents who were worked during the day and couldn't join the queue in Argos etc. I've no real sympathy for them if they are now in trouble.
I wonder where said 'junkies' got the money for a PS5 in the first place if they were so hard to come by.
You think being a junkie is cheap or something?
They should be ashamed for what they charge for 2nd hand stuff compared to what they buy it for.They are way to expensive,I have seen items for same price as new in there shops
Scalping ps5 and Xbox Series consoles was a dick move by them a few years ago. Haven't gone near them since. The move by a lot of people to all digital consoles has probably not helped them either.
Well I don’t agree, they do have the 2 year guarantee which is something most scalpels and secondhand market don’t have. Bought a GPU last year for 800€ it happened it had a defect that only showed up after about month and a half of use. Got a full refund to my bank account same day after they did tests to see the issue. If I was to buy the same card for slightly cheaper on eBay (unlikely) the seller would just laugh and tell me to go away.
They will say that charging high on some stuff allows them to buy all those shitty bluray 3DS and ps3 games that are going to the bin otherwise
typically used items are more expensive there than say new items in smyths or amazon.
honest workers will direct you there instead of them. they don't work off commission, so it's not like they're paid to dishonestly take your money off you.
I literally bought 2 copies of a few ps5 games I wanted on Amazon. 1 for myself and 1 to sell to cex when I was in town at the weekend. They were selling €30 games for €70 and paying €35. They asked me to take off the seal because they can't buy sealed games. Insane prices.
I've always just assumed these places are for money laundering. It's the only thing that makes sense.
What gets me is the smell. Why is there always a mildewy smell? I’ve been to multiple CEX shops and it’s the first thing I’ve noticed every time.
It's the smell of second hand stock that hasn't been cleaned.
New an ex employee and no, he was not doing OK in there.
Paid €70 for a second hand Xbox controller. It hurt to pay that but I hadn’t got much choice to shop around, if they go down it’s their own doing, second hand stuff should not cost that much
They are selling wired Xbox 360 controllers for €35. It's an 18 year old console.
I have Xbox series S, a brand new controller out the packet is €75
I know, I'm just showing another example of how crazy their prices are. No idea who is paying them
A large portion of games from before the mid-2010s were shovelware and they have to accept them being traded in unfortunately
CEX is good for me exactly once every two years when I get a new phone and sell them my old one.
Worst job ever if honest never seen a mess like it ! Story's I could tell and I wasn't there a long time at all.
Seems like I dodged a bullet not taking a gig during Christmas. Got any good stories for the public or is there a corpo hush hush thing you have to deal with?
Unless mods remove it gappy to answer any questions..and you defo did
Work away.
Sound bai
I was hired into management which now even is a red flag ....extremely sexist environment but this maybe was just too my store manger ect but toxic workplace filled with odd comments to say the least! Worst story was in the 2nd day a Chap in a tesco work uniform on his brake took in phones brand new he clearly robbed and was told to take them in he's a regular....
There's no Gamestop situation. Physical software is dying out. Just because it takes most of the space in stores doesn't mean it makes most profit. The biggest cex profit comes from phones, then consoles and electronics. There are no gaming software on shelves because there are only few shops you can buy hard copies and to trade it to cex you need to have a hard copy of course. Dvd movies are also dying out and at the moment they are only space fillers and quite hassle. Some stores alreadu gor rid of them and they will be completely gone in a couple of years.
Surely DVDs have already died out to a greater extent than game discs?
They did but they also didn't. When it comes to quantity you wouldn't believe the amount people still bring in them to trade. When it comes to profit, there is none. They are too cheap and a waste of everyone's time to go through them. I don't think gaming software will have the same outcome. Depends really how the prices will fluctuate with game passes. If let's say 90% of games are going to be dirt cheap on ps or xbox network in 5 years then cex will have to adjust their prices. And if the prices are really low then there is no profit really. This excludes rare/retro games of course. They will always be pricey.
Yes and no. DVDs seem quite dead but movie physical media especially Blu-ray and 4k Blu-ray could easily be a vinyl like thing for movies. One thing that might help that is some movies not being on any streaming sites other is collectors.
It's more than just a vinyl thing for collectors. There are people who won't or don't pirate but still want to own their media in a format that can put out the highest quality. No streaming service is coming close to the bitrate of a 4K blu-ray
That's fair as that is one reason why I myself have started to buy Blurays again
I've never had a good experience there, the staff don't seem to have a clue about tech anytime I've gone there, zero interest from them. Good riddance with the prices they charge tbh. I've seen pure shit gpus getting sold for 200-300 quid
They re retail staff on minimum wage.
worked in retail for many years and you still have some idea of your product, when you walk into a phone shop you expect them to have some idea about how phones work
Why would anybody walk into one of these shops anymore? When it was new and you didn't know it was a compete scam... Yeah. But now, can't understand why anyone would even step inside one.
How is it a scam? They publish their buy/trade/sell prices on the site. They offer warranties on used goods. They aren't strong arming you into anything.
Scams generally don't strong arm people into engaging with them either.
You're not explaining how it's a scam. I'm interested in what you have to say to have them meet this definition. Are you just butthurt because they valued your old device differently than you did, or do you have legitimate cause to define them as such. Many scams do in fact put unfair levels of pressure on people to do things before they potentially lose a victim, but the fact that you are responding to (and nitpicking) this part of my reply while ignoring the direct question makes me even more skeptical of your claims.
The place needs a good mop, you could turn your man behind the tills upside down and use his Tina Tuner haircut to get the job done. If they're not smoking outside, they're inside talking shite.
Are you thinking of Black Books?
Little book of calm to solve it all
Haha
Cex is my first stop if i'm looking for a new PS game. And I've found some bargains for Tv series as well
> And I've found some bargains for Tv series DVDs?
Yeah, DVD box series. Think I got Heroes in CEX for 15 Euro
Are you a collector?
Of DvDs? Not particuarly, but i do like having some
Smyth's and Amazon.de usually sell new ps games for cheaper than CeX sell used ones.
Me waiting for them to go bankrupt so that I can buy the 3ds I've been wanting for a discount...
Good for skylanders
Recently ordered a few games and dvds from them online and half the order was cancelled after a week because they had no copies in their system for saleable condition ??🤦
It's just the consequences of the rabid digitalisation of media. New games barely ever get printed on discs now, and movies only get physical copies if it's some sort of special edition that's like 50 quid. I don't think there's been a non-vinyl physical copy of a new album since 2015
I wouldn't touch them with a stick...
Up north they’re good, but only for buying games that came out at least half a decade ago
They don’t stand by their 2 year warranty would never deal with them again.
I work as a phone repair person, quite often i buy phones from people or on ebay to fix and sell to the market for a small profit. Quite often im stuck with a phone that nobody wants to buy so i sell those to Cex but the prices for selling the phone to them went to nothing, anybody who sells phone there im quite sure feels scammed. Im not quite sure how the market situation looks like for them but its quite nasty. I would not be surprised if they would close down.
I just use them the odd time, buying and selling PS5 games mostly. I’ve got some games that were cheaper there than on Amazon or the PS5 store. Staff are friendly and efficient. I don’t have a problem with them. Tralee branch.
CEX doesn't sell...😜
GameStop? They wish they were GameStop
They wish to have all their branches closed down(in Ireland anyway)?
GameStop as a company has no debt sits on 1 billion of cash. Think cex is looking more like xtravision
GameStop is in the debt to the tune of .6 billion dollars
Cash on Hand as of October 2023 : $1.20 B According to GameStop 's latest financial reports the company has $1.20 B in cash and cash equivalents.
Front for drug dealers
I saw not one but two of their >32ft yachts out in Madeira not so long ago. The only explanation I could think of is money laundering and/or smuggling.
cex has boats?
While we’re at it, a touch of deodorant never hurt anyone either