Can I make money FIXING Amazon RETURNS?
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
- I've seen a few of these videos, and I wanted to see for myself if it's possible to actually make money from one of these things.
I picked it up from eBay for £66 in total... Is anything going to be faulty, or is it just a pile of random crap? Or, maybe, a bit of both!
Let's fix what we can and see how much money can potentially be made from these things...
Hope you enjoy!
Steve
PS. I'm not an expert in repairs at all. I do this for fun, and it may not be the best or safest way to go about repairing broken stuff. I'm pretty good at melting plastic though. Please don't copy me - I'm an idiot.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 What's in the box?
04:31 Sensational Spreadsheet of all items
06:46 The faulty things
07:16 Item 1 - Nokia Streaming Box 8000
15:38 Item 2 - TWS Wireless Earbuds
19:07 Item 3 - LeMega Portable DAB Radio
24:03 Item 4 - HyperX Cloud Mix Buds
28:21 Item 5 - Sony SRS-XB23 Speaker
37:05 Sensational Spreadsheet update and results
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Please only use this service if you are a UK resident and using Royal Mail, otherwise they'll probably lose it.
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Links are affiliated where possible to help support the channel. Nice. - Jak na to + styl
Stupid Amazon Return Box Thing
I put this here as a spoiler saver, by the way. People get very annoyed if the top comment is "you idiot, you broke everything" or similar. Gives the game away, I guess.
You could of course just stop breaking everything, but still, nice gesture. :P
It’s like playing the game “Mouse Trap”. Spend all that time building the contraption to either see if it works or not
Hahaaaa
Yes Hello! This is the closest I’ve come to watching an just up loaded video! Hi and thank you! Also I brought a bill big bass because of you!!! Lol
well done on the haircut, looks fresh!
It's a Sustainable hobby. In our 'throw-away' society with so much unnecessary landfill, this, for me, is a hugely enjoyable video. And it also unintentionally provides basic tuition, which gives me the confidence to try to fix some of MY broken stuff. I've subscribed 👍🏼
I agree that it's better than throwing it away, but let's be honest: Most of this is - and always has been - pure e-waste. Almost none of these things should have been produced in the first place.
Same, found it very entertaining and educational. Another sub.
Love the "buy a box of unknown crap and see if you can fix it" format!! Let's see another!!
Agree, so good seeing random stuff destined for landfill get a 2nd chance
I'd like to see a part 2 of this: "What happened when I tried selling repaired Amazon returns on ebay" or some such.
Yes, I was hoping to see the final result as well.
Yes, we're not seeing ANY of the REAL costs and efforts associated with running a "business" like this.
@@chuckschillingvideos Because he's not running it as a business? It's a hobby that he loves and if he breaks even then his hobby costs are better than most. The real money is coming from Patrons that enjoy his content and his CZcams views.
@@chantalwiebe534 I'm sure that's where ALL they money is - in CZcams. But he's not presenting this as a hobby - he's presenting it as a viable profit/loss business. So I think it's valid to point out that this is NOT a workable business model.
@@chuckschillingvideoshe was already in profit based on 25 percent resale before he fixed the new items though. And you'd need to have at least 20-30 of these boxes to find out what the averages were. I used to do this but with pallet loads not boxes and there is money to be made.
I can't believe you re-assembled that Sony speaker before testing it. You're a mad man.
I have no doubt he always tests before re-assembling but appearing not to do so gives it a real Paul Daniels magic feeling
@@chazjamesn There have been a few times when he's reassembled without testing and the device has failed to work.
@@RetroJack yup true good point, there have been a few occasions
You shouldn't test a speaker without assembling it completely. That's the easiest way to burn the voice coil or tear the cone. Source: been there done that.
More like Tommy Cooper!@@chazjamesn
How funny it is to have someone opening one of these boxes and hopping that things actually DON'T work! 😂
Well done Steve!
Excellent video with multiple fixes, which as far as I'm concerened is a BONUS!
With an Extra BONUS:
Most of these types of videos when completed say "I've made (X) profit"!
Which absolutely infuriates me as there is ZERO profit unless you have actually sold the items.
You on the other hand Steve are correct when you said that the profit would be if you sold them, which might be a tiny difference to some, but for me is EXACTLY how to do these repair and profit videos.
Love ya brother 👍💖
Very true indeed. Who wants to actually buy second hand ear buds, some unknown persons ear wax is coming
your way soon..🤢🤮 Plus, nobody seems to "factor in" the time spent trying to sell items.
The CZcamsr known as "My Mate Vince" tends not to sell stuff he has repaired because , he states, isn't qualified
to repair.
That's fair enough, but then it's only an earner from CZcams and a fast track to the landfill site.🤷🏼♂!
As someone who worked in PCB manufacturing for a decade, I can tell you that the small metal shavings you had in the streaming box are extremely common, especially with cheap manufacturers. For the grounded parts of the connector, check for the largest soldering tip you can get. As ground is a large layer and you also heat up the whole connector when soldering, you really need a lot of heat that's hard to dissipate by either one of them.
Depending on the soldering iron, you can get some very thick spade types you can also use for BGA reballing. Otherwise a thick chisel tip will work okay. Makes everything so much easier.
Little edit: I've been working with a Weller RT station and their tips, I'd highly suggest that, as it makes working extremely comfortable. But the price might be a little much. Completely worth it though. You can even find DIY versions of an arduino soldering station for the tips, which only causes you to have to buy the expensive tips. However, it's absolutely worth it, can't recommend them enough.
"As ground is a large layer" 15 years with Honeywell ('77 to '91) repairing multi layer PCB's and PWB's for mainframes and peripherals. Faulty IC's especially difficult soldering them in and was a task but with the PACE soldering station it wasn't too bad once you got used to it. Of course Weller was used as well mainly for in the field.
Also worth putting a plug in the socket to help prevent the plastics moving things out of alignment...
For me, getting a JBC soldering station with theT245 handle was already a game changer to rework boards with heavy copper planes. And the selection of tips they offer has something for every issue. I really like the very wide tips to change out broken connectors, as you can just heat up the full row of pins at once, and it has the power to actually not struggle with the pins attached to power planes. They have square ones as well to desolder ICs, really nice that you don't need to heat up all of the board to just swap one component. If that would not be enough, you could even get the heavy duty station with the biggerT470 handle that has a 250W heating element.
These tools are not cheap tho, so it really makes more sense in the professional work where you need them almost every day. The Weller RT tips with a little "DIY" solderin station are not bad either, we have some of them as well on some other desks.
When it comes to soldering tweezers, i actually prefer the Weller over the JBC tweezers for the handling.
Fascinating how many repairs are simply damged ports. I'm learning lots from these videos. 👍
nice fixes, as always.
The thing that always gets me with this Amazon returns is the audacity some people have. They are using a product for months and then kill the USB port. And since it's still in the warranty time, they just return it for whatever reason (stopped working) and it just goes straight to these returns resellers or into the trash, because Amazon surely doesn't care about them being fixed.
So good job, giving those products a second life because some people are just too careless with their stuff and Amazon also doesn't give a damn about our planet's resources. I hope you get your money plus a good bonus back from ebay for those items!
I bought that CAT thermal phone as customer return. It was rated as "perfect". It was a good deal for me as I've never would've bought it, but it was like 1/4 priced. It arrived and I was really happy to see it powerup and seemingly working. But after I installed SIM card I noticed after like few mins that I'm not getting operator logo's or anything. Luckily I just send message to this webshop with their claim form and stated that I would rather have it fixed than refunded if possible. It worked just fine. It was on repairs for like couple weeks, but got it back now fully working. I think it was prime example how they don't test items 100% throughly, which of course makes a lot of sense. Big webshop it would take ages to actually do phone call with returned item. It's weird to see stuff returned.
He didn’t even stop to wipe the blood away. That’s commitment. Everyones Gotta give a ‘Like’ to this one. The man bled to bring you premium content for f*cks sake! 😂 Yet another great video, Steve
A real tech would have quaterised with the iron....
I once bought a mystery electronics box. It was full of early 1980s cordless phones with the long telescope antennas. None of them worked
Is your name Del Boy Trotter?
As far as quality control goes, my Grandma was a quality assurance lead at IBM. You can't test every piece of a production run if you're making thousands of units. So you test random samples. So it's very likely you'll get a number of production errors from an outside factory.
I don’t trust anything your grandma says
In layman's terms: The one, two, skip a few policy 😂
@@Scott-M11 per thousand or so
This goes for a lot of production line including cars
In my production experience (portugal) it was standard for EVERY unit to be tested. There were some cheap AC controllers(not inverter, ~10€ component cost) which did around 500-800/lot around 8k/year and all of them were tested.
Well done steve, give yourself a hugh patt on the back. Surley you can discount the melted plastic as it was done intentionaly to gain access, not accidentally. Im sure others would agree.
I agree. If the only way forward is to melt plastic, you melt plastic.
I think that small blob thing was just a glob-top (chip-on-board) hiding some very small IC. You can tell there are traces going into it, so it wasn't a plastic post holding it in. The moment he melted the epoxy and scrubbed in there with the iron whatever was inside was probably destroyed.
Not that it really matters, since these things are a nightmare to repair anyways.
"I can see clearly now the solders gone"
Just gold haha. Appreciate your humor and mindset going into these projects, keep up the great work my friend 🤘 love your content.
I absolutely love all your videos. Been watching your channel for a couple months now, and im glad i found it.
I watch them as i troubleshoot electronic repairs at the thrift store i work at 😊 and learn a ton
For things with lots of tight clips like on the Sony speaker, I use cheap guitar picks. You get a big pack of them and just put one in each spot with a clip to help release them.
Thanks for putting up videos like this one, Steve! It's so satisfying to see you putting things to work properly again, and you do it with great ease! Keep up the great work!
Now see, I think deliberately melting plastic shouldn't count - it was a legitimate action during a repair... I think I speak for the entire internet when I say you can put it back. Right? Like this comment if you agree. (farming likes on a YT video... how distasteful.).
Anyway thanks for the bumper episode, next I think you should visit your local waste disposal site and procure some broken toasters.... 😂
I didn't realise how strongly people felt about the melted-plastic counter! Let's see if the rest of the internet agree, and I'll roll it back! 😂
...and I've already placed toasters on my list of "never, ever, ever am I going to attempt to fix" things. It's right behind printer and coffee machine... 🤣🤣
@@StezStixFix I'm with not counting deliberately melted plastic.
Toasters? Those were my specialities to fix when I was a kid. But that was back in the day when they were purely electromechanical! I have two coffee machines, one filter, one bean to cup, which I need to fix, but I haven't psyched myself up enough to start tacking them yet. My kitchen table is currently full with amateur radio stuff.
@@StezStixFix Dude, I was like "what did you melt? Have I missed something" That deliberately melt does not count man. Put your counter back on track. This counter is only for stupid mistakes, allright?!
@@StezStixFix Nah, that deliberate melting shouldn't count! :)
I came to the comments section looking for something along the lines of this comment, not disappointed :D
Also, there are a few other later other comments stating the same. Plastic rivets are the devil, they don't count!
Aside from being the totally wrong smartwatch than the one shown on the box (probably someone ended up with a new watch and returned the old one), there are 2 metal disks on the bottom of the watch, and the missing charger pad has 2 spring loaded contacts. You could try putting 5V and around 100mA on those disks (mind the polarity lol) to check if it works at all, it should at least turn on with some voltage coming through...
Great video Steve! I love these longer ones! A nice mix of items aswell!
Actually these cheap "smart" watches use a very simple USB cable with magnetic contacts for the watch. Can be had for about $3 USD on the usual Chinese sites.
Started soldering this week. Thanks for the inspiration
Excellent I love the customer returns idea, really enjoyed it thanks Steve 😊
Ohhh I like the sound of this! Going to watch it later, trying to finish off a video to publish, this can be like my relaxing dessert while it uploads :D
I am halfway through my amazon returns video, started filming in November! I messed up the whole 'profit' part of it as half of the stuff I gave to family as Xmas presents haha.
Aw cool that 2nd item, the earbuds with power bank, i have those exact earbuds for years. They're awesome, great sound, but lately the battery is starting to not last so long so now I know how to open them, and what kind of battery it has. Thanks Steve!
I really like this style of video! I hope you do more like it. I've been watching your videos for quite a while, I am also an amateur fixer ;) and I have learned quite a few tricks from you.
11:26 Can't see any Jeffs... Bridges 🤣
i would have already given it the MC by now.
Really enjoyed this type of video and seeing more of your workshop, keep up the great work 👊🏼
Hey Steve!! Love the videos man! You have a knack for keeping us entertained while we watch you go about doing your thing. I actually learned a lot from your videos and hope to keep learning. I live in the States and my "favorite color is blue... no, yelloAAAHHHH!!!!"
Welldone, favourite fix was the Sony speaker - I have a headphone amp somewhere that was doing similar they were meant to send a replacement but it hasn't arrived, you gotta love our far east friends - it could still be in the post somewhere, if not I can console myself with some of their sweet n sour pork Cantonese, but that aside I might as well have a look at the port on the knackered one I have and see if I can do anything about it. Keep it up, your still one of the most wholesome British 'entertainers' on CZcams. Thanks, Stefan, Jersey, Channel Islands
Love the new camera angles!❤also loved your „studio“ tour as you called it!😊
Your humour is what keeps me watching your videos.
Nice job on finding the short on the HDMI port. :O
Very nice bit of soldering I do appreciate the quality.
Those boxes are mostly just returned stuff, eh. Vince too. Great video though, thanks!!
Yeah, it's odd because most of it (over 75%) is absolutely fine and could easily be resold. I guess it's just not worth their time to go through it all and sort out what works and what doesn't!
Your solder skills are second to none. Amazing stuff.
10:34... "How did that pass quality control?" The consumer is Quality Control nowadays. It's cheaper to replace the 5% that are sent out faulty (if the consumer requests it) than it is to pay somebody to check 10% of the products.
The volumes these are made in (remember Nokia is a trademark owned by a Chinese firm now and NOTHING to do with the Finnish firm of old) they will test maybe 10 boards in every 1000 if that.
As you say, it's cheaper to replace the 2% failures than test everything and rework.
Thanks, I really enjoyed this style of video!
I love your soundtrack. 80s synth vibe. You're very good at what you do and your vids are satisfying
The DAB radio looks like 2 vampire bats in a dark cave.
I have stumbled here for no reason other than one of your videos appeared on my feed. My goodness, brilliant! Love the songs and love the tinkering. Subscribed good sir.
I did the same
Amazing job Steve... great video and work.
Some things do get returned just so people can get discounts at the store they return it to. Kohls for example gave us 10% off in store for bringing an Amazon return to them
What do they want Amazon returns?
@@mattsephton idk some kinda deal with Amazon where they take returns for them I guess
Cracking video, more of these multi fixes!
I salute you........I wish I had half your technical knowledge and patience
love this channel! just came across it and its brilliant! good work my man!
I do something similar to you but with sewing machines. one came in the other day it cost £1800 4 years ago and even the manufacturer was extremely unhelpful and claimed they could not get the part. In the end the part cost 94pence to fix it. Love your channel your and witty humour.
just came across this video in my recommendations, not sure why as it not my normal type of video, but I really enjoyed it and subscribed. thanks for the video
Nice collection of fixes I like them. I wish I could find a DAB radio like that but digital radio never took off in the US.
That android TV box is pretty cool Could see hooking one to my TV and putting some streaming TV apps on it.
I loved your face at 31:34. "It's not easy!"
I love the shot with the lone fumes extractor and the background music🎉
I’m glad I discovered your channel most entertaining repair guy on CZcams I’ve seen so far, realising that you was singing with your patreon members along with the items in your video is very creative and fun made me laugh.
Also where do you buy these returns from as I’ve been wanting to do something similar (selling what works)
I like these job lot fixes, more like this please Steve
Great video idea! Loved it and would love to see another
Hi Steve, That copper sheet inside the DAB radio looked more like screening than an antenna. Some radio devices use headphones or cables plugged into them for antennas. I can't say that for sure in this case, but as that copper sheet was sandwiched between the radio pcb and battery, it wasn't in a good spot for an antenna.
Love this video concept, would love to see more even if you get a junk box!
Steve, we have the same luck. Everytime I work on anything I always end up cutting one of my fingers. I will be 30 minutes into a project and I have to stop and get a Band-Aid. Anyways keep up the awesome videos!
Steve will stop the world and melt with you.
Well done Steve you need to do more of these videos
Love this; would love to see another box.
Bravo Steve! You even spilled blood to try to get into those cursed earbuds. Hats off, and plasters on, to you 👍😀
PS ... did you try offering some power to that watch from your bench supply to see if it is worth getting a charger?
This was a great video! Would love to see more!!
How can someone be so technically competent and such a natural comedian when I fail to be either. It's not really on. Subbed to keep an eye on things.
I have that Sony BT Speaker. I got it for few euros from my mobile service provider as gift card. I'm glad I selected it. I've been really happy at work with it. Quite nice audio quality and battery last for like 5h on almost maxed volume. Good to know that it's port is pain to replace if it comes up someday.
iv tried repairing things screwed most things up , you make it look so easy
Just came across your videos today, and I am very much enjoying the technical tear downs and repairs. That said, put a Band-Aid on your cut; this is a technical teardown show not a surgery program. I am serious, you should clean and dress that wound… Heaven knows where you’ve been.😂
I'm very impressed with your micro-soldering skills, especially with that 12-pin port!
Love it! Need more of these vids. Cheers Mate 🍻
That was brilliant Ste. Forget the 25%. Go for 50% resell ! Everything will be snapped up and you've made a tidy profit. Maybe an idea to do this kind of Amazon thing once a month? Really good for the variety.
Looking forward to seeing the TV brackets assembled. Hahahah
"You've made a tidy profit" Excluded hours spent on fixing it.
He could have earned 137.17GBP (£) in 4-7 hours working a job in retail that doesn't require forward investment (£34-19.5/h this is why the repair industry is dying).
Second hand job I would quote £40-£70 per started hour due to equipment cost, my brother that work with certified electrical engineers they quote $100-$175 per started hour.
it's a £1 job material wise, if you know the issue it's a 1-2 minute fix with a £260k re-flow station and a 5 axis soldering robot.
if you pay somebody it would cost between £40-£70 to be worth it for this ONE speaker, if you pay them by industry standards it would be at least $200 to fix it.
over all getting "£200 potential retail value out of £849 new value" sounds about right (if you ignore fixing time and hourly rate)
And then you either have to ignore customer complains that can tarnish your reseller reputation or pay somebody to manage that... for money
It's not remotely a "tidy profit".
29 items x £3 delivery = £87
Business seller Ebay fees on £208 (10.9%) = £22.67
Price paid for stock = £66
Total cost of business = £175.67
Assuming everything sells (It won't) and assuming you get no returns or scammers, you have earned a total of £33 for what I can only assume is at least 20-30 hours of work (Cleaning, picture, listing, packaging, replying).
Even if the lot sold at 50% of RRP (£416) you're looking at £209 profit - or less than the minimum wage....assuming you sell everything and have no problems.
The vast majority of this stock is worthless and won't even sell for 10%, never mind 25%. There's a reason the Ebay seller sold it as a job lot - they know their job.
Buyer always pays delivery@@Jaymiecain1
You need to decorate that fume extractor as Kirby! It has such Kirby-vibes! 🙂
You know, from a content point of view at least I think this is a really creative interesting direction to go. Just forever repair amazon? return boxes :-)
You make my Saturdays with your videos.......
Definitely upped the production quality since I last watched, not that it was bad just a noticeable bump up. Kudos❤
Those solders on the port legs were S tier beautiful.
really enjoyed this one- lots of random stuff !
Dave for MVP!! Thanks for the quality content.
Fascinating work!
I bought an earbud from Amazon, different brand, but similar in price to this HyperX and after a few months of use the left side stopped working, exactly like this one. No sound, but touch controls were working fine. Right side was working perfectly. I tried to factory reset according to the user manual and it didn't work. Because it was still under warranty I contacted Amazon through their customer service channel and they provided me a different factory reset procedure. According to them, there were two versions of the same product but with different settings. I tried the alternative solution and It worked like a charm. It has been 3 years now and it still works fine.
I greatly enjoy the musical bits!
That's a LOT of fixes. Like the new workstation!
Newcomer to the channel and this watch was really worthwhile. Great work! I'll be back!
Not so Stupid Amazon return box fixes there Steve - Nice 👍
Pretty sweet fix average there, Steve - good work ;) So tough you didn't even stop to put a band aid on that jag you scored while trying to open those cheap ear buds! good luck with the resale - recon you could get more than 1/4 value for some of those items.
Loved this video, you done well with the repairs there, not surprised the earphones were a fail, like you say they aren't built to be repaired, built to be binned if they break.
Great channel discovered it on my night shift, subbed!!
I so want to buy one of those boxes just for the mystery of them lol.
I think that's what makes these exciting! It's boring knowing what you're gonna get! 😂
So you have an eBay page Steve?
Great work!!
"3 TV Wall bracket!" .... LOL dude read the letters on the box! 😀
Dont remember how i stumbled on to your vids…but love them everytine
Where can you buy a box like this from?
31:45 he's using the metal knife-like thing again lmao meanwhile his thumb and nail have numerous bleeding cuts.
Bro you're a legend lol. Wonderful video.
Presume for that earbud you just need to find and initiate their pairing procedure sequence or the reset to factory settings procedure. Try these methods before open bluetooth earbuds. Thank you for sharing here your work, skills and servicing electronics hobby!
Said it before but it never ceases to amaze me how hamfisted some people are. I have literally never broken a USB port but some people seem incapable of understanding one way connectors.
Nice fixes Ste - I might try and have a go at this stuff myself except for two reasons. 1) You need to factor in your time, I doubt you made money after the repair costs are taken out and b) I have no idea how to get a box of returns from Amazon.
Those Artfones are basically designed for the elderly who just need something to call and send texts, with big buttons, and sometimes have an SOS button (calls and texts people on a certain white list) and torch button on the sides. My nan who passed very recently (at the time of writing) used to have one. They're definitely handy.
I want to ask how you get one of this. Can you add a link or something?
I always write the same thing on these „can I make a profit?“-videos: What pound-number do you enter in the equation for the time you spent on it? And I mean ALL the time, including the selling hustle… but fun video and for you part of the profit obviously comes from the fun of making a good video about it 👍😊
Steve. On you spreadsheet use =subtotal rather than sum so when you filter it only sums the visible rows. Top content.
There are videos showing how to make broken ear buds into bt speakers. Could be a fun project to do for a video with the pair that are unfixable. Nice job and glad you are able to make your money back.
Dave is such a good helper.
Great job Steve! Was a fun idea 💡
that was really fun.....stez, STEZZZ..STEZZZZZZZ.....do it again!!!
Another entertaining video!! Congrats on making a modest profit!! 👍👍
Always enjoy your videos.