Christmas is rolling around 2008 and I was just curious as to whether or not the Nintendo Wii was still difficult to obtain. Amazon.com has the Wii console in stock and ready to ship. I wonder if people are still paying above retail for the Wii on Ebay? I was browsing some of the completed listings on Ebay and noticed that there was a completed auction today (November 17, 2008) where the Wii console, Wii Play, and Wii nunchuck sold for $405.
At first I was surprised that someone would pay this much when the price of the following items on Amazon.com is:
| Item | Cost |
| Wii Console | $249.99 |
| Wii Play | $44.96 |
| Wii Nunchuk | $17.96 |
| Total | $312.91 |
If I were to purchase these items in New York City, sales tax would be 8.375%. That would bring my total cost to $339.12. It looks like the ebay sellers profit is around $65. However, there are some more fees to consider:
| Ebay Insertion Fee: | $0.15 |
| Ebay Final Value Fee: | $15.49 |
| PayPal Fee: | $12.05 |
| Total: | $27.69 |
The fees almost cut his profit in half. This does not account for the shipping that the seller is paying either. His profit will probably be around $38 minus whatever his shipping costs are. I’m assuming that the seller did not pay retail for his items because it would be a lot of work to make less than $40 on this one auction.
I think it makes much more sense to order the Wii from Amazon as it is in stock and they do have Free Super Saver Shipping which hopefully will land the Wii in your hands before Christmas.
