Why you should take advantage of this widely ignored part of Amazon to save money

Whether you're a geek or not, you have to admit there's something satisfying about buying something that's brand new. Even if it's something that millions of people own, like a smartphone or TV, this one is yours.

It was for that reason, and a couple of others, that I was always wary of buying refurbished or open-box products — especially tech.

Refurbished means it was broken, right? Isn't it just going to break again? Ditto for open-box products; if someone bought something and didn't like it, why should I?

Those questions, and the last one in particular started to become more flimsy the more I started thinking about them. Yes, something may have been broken once, but would a manufacturer go through the process of fixing and recertifying it just to have it returned again? If someone I've never met and will never know returned a product, how could I know why they did it?

For example, I don't like bass-heavy headphones. If you do and bought a more neutral-sounding pair, you might return them because they don't work for you. If I picked up the same pair you returned as an open-box item, I might be perfectly happy with them, and save some money. Money-saving became a big reason I started to think about buying used, refurbished, and open-box products, especially after realizing my arguments against them didn't hold up.

It also helped when I realized that retailers like Best Buy and Amazon sell open-box and refurbished items with the same return policy as their normal products. That means I wouldn't have a fight ahead of me if my former fears about used tech came true.

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