The second-hand PC market has its own consumer base in Bangladesh and its demand has always been high among the target customers.
A second-hand PC, if purchased right, can significantly save costs on hardware and provide a feasible solution for people who are on a tight budget. Let’s explore two of the most prominent marketplaces for Second-hand PC components.
New Elephant Road, Dhaka
The second-hand PC market in New Elephant Road is the country’s oldest and largest market for second-hand PC components. This market on Elephant Road has been in the business since the inception of the consumer-based computer market in this country.
According to a report, the total annual turnover from this market is approximately Tk 1.50 billion. Students, professionals who are running tight on budget but need a computer for their respective academic and professional works have long relied on this market for decades.
You will find computer parts for any budget in the Elephant Road market, and it might sound surprising, that people regularly build computers for less than Tk 10 thousand from here.
You will find all sorts of old tray processors, motherboards, hard disks, and monitors that are not being produced in the current market, at a cheap rate. And if you happen to know the configuration, you’ll be able to find the right combination of old used hardware to build your computer that will serve your purpose.
It should be mentioned that the main customers in this market are people who have tight financial restrictions. So if you are coming here to build a traditional ‘gaming PC’ at a lower cost, this isn’t the right place for you.
Facebook Marketplace
The marketplace for second-hand PC components on Facebook has become significantly larger in the past 4 to 5 years. There are several Facebook groups for buying and selling PC components and some of the groups have more than 100,000 members.
People from all over the country post photos of the components they are trying to sell in these groups, often with proper papers and receipts, and mention their asking price in their posts. Interested people give their feedback in the comment section or in a personal chat and complete their deals.
One of the key characteristics of these groups is that they have been created for the benefit of individual buyers and sellers, so these individuals don’t have to buy or sell their components to the wholesale ‘syndicate’ and incur losses in their deals.
You will frequently come across posts where an individual is selling a full-fledged gaming PC, and as there are a lot of people in these groups, it’s hard to sell components at inflated prices as anyone who is trying to buy an item gains a lot of insights from the comment sections.
If you are trying to buy contemporary PC hardware, the PC buying selling groups on Facebook will serve you better than actual marketplaces. There are also a lot of advertisements for individual components outside of these groups on just the default Facebook marketplace, these are usually the same components that are also advertised on platforms like Bikroy.Com.
Although buying second-hand components online without community support is generally not a good idea.
There are some other places in Dhaka such as the Shah Ali Market in Mirpur, Eastern Plus in Shantinagar, Bashundhara City in Panthapath, and Jamuna Future Park in Kuril where you will find second-hand laptops for sale.
It is always wise to buy non-refurbished items with servicing support from these places.
