Isn’t it strange how there seems to have been an explosion of refurbished GPS devices on the market, especially at the big online retailers like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and Ebay.com? This makes total sense, finding quality GPS devices, especially those that you can use in your car, for a low price is definitely something that consumers want.

So why are there literally thousands, if not 10’s of thousands of refurbished GPS devices on the market? There are actually a lot of different reasons why a unit is going to marked as refurbished by a manufacturer or retailer. Some refurbished GPS are still in their pristine, pre-production condition and haven’t even left their own packaging. Take a look at these reasons why any product could labeled as “refurbished”:

1. The person who originally wanted the product brought it back to the store, this generally indicates that the original owner of the product took advantage of the store’s return policy for one reason or another. More often than not, there is literally nothing even wrong with the product; the person who purchased it just ends up not wanting it.

2. The product sat on the store shelf too long and became “overstock”. When this happens, the store will either sell the product for a clearance price, or deliver the unit to it source; when the product is sent back to the manufacturer, the manufacturer will, in come cases, label the product “refurbished”, and then distribute the devices out again at greatly reduced prices. The funny part about this is the simple fact that the product is still literally brand new, and has never even been opened at all.

3. It could be that the unit is left over because it was a “display model”. When this is the case, the product eventually gets sent back to the manufacturer; the producer checks out the navigation unit for any defects or damage and then sends it back out to be sold as a refurbished GPS.

4. The original owner of the product opened it but returned it because they didn’t like it. If this happens and the store doesn’t want to deal with the unit themselves they send it back to the manufacturer who reseals it and labels it refurbished.

5. Shipping damage. Sometime boxes get crushed or dropped by shipping personnel, if the damage is major or minor, components or just cosmetic, the unit is shipped back and labeled refurbished.

6. There was a defect in the product. This can be pretty common depending on the batch of GPS navigation units. The problems could be cosmetic, like a scratch on the display, or they could be mechanical, like a broken part, and if they are able to repair the item’s cosmetic or mechanical problem they do so; when the process is complete, the product is literally brand new again, and some might argue it is now actually less likely to become defective than the non refurbished products sitting on the shelves of Staples; they argue this because refurbished devices generally undergo a battery of tests.

Refurbished GPS units represent a value to consumers that they should take advantage of. Not every device out there is going to be great, but there are a lot of excellent units just waiting to be purchased at rock bottom prices.