We're buying a lot of pre-builts, but there's a challenge (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

I think I have a way to get our Patreon backers some access to some pre-builts at a slightly discounted price, but I'm not sure about it. Please stay with me:

I've always really liked doing "sting operation" reviews of pre-builts -- basically, we show up unannounced in a physical retail store or order from a website to an alias, then get the real customer experience. We did this for Walmart, Cyberpower, iBUYPOWER, NZXT, and others over the years, and now is a perfect time to do it again. I just bought an Alienware pre-built last night and would really like to buy a bunch of them from others this week to rip into them in the same way we have in the past (including our Beve Sturke secret customer service tests), hopefully finding one or two really good / stand-out ones in the process.

Here's the thing, though: I don't have the budget of Linus. If I spend $2000 on a computer for a video, I'm for sure going to lose money on that video (unless it blows up like the Walmart PC, but that's so rare that it won't happen on all of these). I can take a loss for a few videos, but I can't spend $10K on pre-builts and then be financially negative. It's too much of a risk for us. I also don't like buying and returning things these days. It just doesn't really feel right and it's a lot of extra hassle/timeline hassle, even if we rebuild it better than it was. A lot of the returns just get shipped around or trashed anyway, so it contributes to waste.

The idea: We buy the systems, as usual, and do all our reviews. As we finish them, we post the reviews for everyone. Via Patreon exclusively (not sure if via Discord or posts here), we then offer to sell the pre-built system at a slight price reduction. I don't want to make a big public deal out of it and would rather keep it to a small/exclusive group. There's no pressure to buy anything, but I figure it might be a nice way to get some of you access to a pre-built system with a usable GPU and CPU in it. You can then use the system as is or rip the parts out or resell it, whatever you want, doesn't bother us. We'd restore it to its original state or better, throw in a mouse mat or mouse pad or something, then ship it your way. If you want us to sign it, that's fine too. I wouldn't want any of you to do this just to do a favor for us -- it'd only be if you really need and can use the computer.

If we bought one for, say, $2000, I think I'd probably just offer to sell it to someone in our Patreon group for ~$1800 or something. We want to make sure you get a good deal on it as a thanks for the support. I probably won't even talk about the fact that we're doing this until after it's all done, because I don't want a bunch of people trying to game the system. The goal really is to make it available to our existing supporters but to also fund our efforts, because we just can't buy all these computers unless we either return them or resell them.

Would anyone want this? They're pre-builts. That means we might hate a lot of them if they're built poorly. But we'd at least discount it for you, then it's just up to you to figure out what to do with it. Our goal would be to get rid of it and recoup cost. The parts are still the parts, even if the assembly sucks.

I would probably have to limit it to the continental US just because shipping is expensive & risky at the size of a full system. We could maybe make it work, though, but I do have to make sure we don't end up scammed by anyone in the Patreon group (e.g. ship to another country and then get charged back where I can't fight it, though I don't suspect that'd happen in this more exclusive group). We'd probably try to get them out to people who regularly post on Discord or something first and foremost.

Anyway, I'm not sure the logistics. Let me know what you think. I'm basically trying to just sell the systems when we're done with them so that I don't have to do the weird buy/return dance or lose a huge amount of money every video. I want to do like a week of these.

Thanks!

- Steve