I don’t know that I’ve seen them for that close to retail but the reason prices are so high on eBay (besides the pandemic) is because the average person generally knows nothing about computers.
My wife’s sister just bought herself a MacBook Air for school, she paid $1250 plus tax to Best Buy. When we asked her which model she bought and where from we were horrified. She’d paid way too much for a computer she didn’t need. We asked her why she didn’t just buy it direct from Apple? She didn’t know there would be a difference. We asked if she knew about the education discount? She didn’t. We asked if she knew about the free AirPods when buying from Apple? She didn’t.
This is most people.
We had to get her to return the Best Buy one she bought, we went over what she wants from the computer in order to spec if appropriately and we found the best one for her. She paid the same as Best Buy and got a much better computer with free AirPods.
What is obviously a good or bad deal to us is not the case for most people. Most people have no idea what they are looking at when it comes to computers. They see a 2016 MacBook Pro on eBay for $1000 and they don’t see that it is 4 years old. They see it looks the same as the one on the Apple store for $1300 plus tax. They see a $300+ saving even though you and I both know that is not really the case.
I literally did this selling my 2016 MacBook Pro a month or two ago. It baffles me how I could get so much.
