PS3 and Auction Sites

Have you looked in the sale papers for a PS3?  I guess that enough people are still buying them that you don't see them on sale often.  It can be annoying if you only have a set amount of money to work with and it's not quite enough to make the purchase.

I'm right there with you!  I have tried to justify the item in so many ways for so long.  I knew I could try to sell my old PS2 and even the games to raise money for a PS3 fund.  I've even thought about my old jeans in the closet, the ones with holes in them and seem all fashionable and seeing what I could sell them for on eBay.  I even cleaned out the garage scrounging for old tools and junk that I haven't used in years so I could sell them on eBay.  We even had a yard sale so I could try to earn enough money to buy the PS3.  It was hard to justify the time spent after I counted my till and it came up to just over $50.  By the way, garage sales will not get you the most money!  You'll make much more money selling your stuff on eBay.

In days gone by I felt the same way.  You seem to get so much more from the PS3 than from the Xbox or Wii.  The fact that it is Blu-Ray is a huge selling point for me.  Not only are all the games HD but now my movies are too.  Good luck getting that point past the wife!  Truthfully, once I got my wife hooked on Hi-Def TV we've never looked back.  At the end of the day it turned out to be easy to persuade her to get the PS3 on every front except the price.

I've been digging around for a while and I've discovered that to get the best price on the best game system that plays Blu-Ray you can't get a better value than with a PS3.  Even when it's not on sale!  You'll spend $200-250 bucks on a basic Blu-Ray player anyway.  While XBox does offer HD it is not the preferred format.  For me it was all about the hunt and getting the PS3 at a true sale price. 

I searched on eBay and some other traditional auction sites and found that there really aren't any PS3 Sale Prices out there.  You have to spend more than you normally would and get a "bundle" to really get the value.  The goal here is to spend as little money as possible, not more. 

Ultimately, I had to think outside the box.  Somebody told me about unique bid auction sites and I started researching them.  You'll find a few out there for sure but one stands above the rest, www.auctions4acause.com.  They have much more selection among everyday items than most of the other sites including the PS3.  Most other sites focus on really high-dollar items like cars, boats, houses and land.  That's all well and good but I just want a PS3!

Once I found that site I knew I had what I was looking for.  They had 2 items going for them in that they had the item I wanted at a potentially very inexpensive price.  I visited the site and setup an account.  I made 3 entries and hoped I had outsmarted the other bidders.  Unfortunately, I didn't get it the first time.  A few days later another was being auctioned.  I bid 3 or 4 more times, said my prayers and waited.  Bingo!  This time I had a winner.  7 days later I was playing Hot Shots Golf on my new PS3.  $59 was all I had spent.64.  Not too shabby, huh?

It can take a few minutes of reading to truly grasp the concept of the lowest unique bid auction style.  But once you get it, it can be addicting.  Since that time that I won the PS3 I've bid on and won 3 other items including an iPod Nano (they have the best iPod Prices) and $400 gas card.  I'm getting about 4 to 1 on my money so far with $1,200 in items for less than $360 in bidding. 

I wouldn't suggest the big box stores to find the best prices.  You can surely get a great deal when you go register at Auctions4aCause.