A number of scalped Apple Vision Pro pre-orders have sold on eBay for upwards of $6,000.
When you just gotta have it, I guess money is no object for some.
When Vision Pro pre-orders opened up on January 19th, the delivery dates for online orders quickly pushed back all the way into March. However, in-store pre-orders are still expected within the first few days of release at many stores.
Some of that demand appears to have been from scalpers who pre-ordered the headset with the goal of reselling their pre-ordered unit for even more money on Ebay.
There are presently more than 1,200 listings on Ebay for pre-ordered Vision Pro headsets, most promising to be shipped from the scalper to the second-hand buyer on the same day that the headset is delivered.
Who Will Have the Last Laugh?
Although some scalpers appear to be making a huge profit on their early pre-orders, it looks like many others may end up being the greater fool—among more than 1,200 Vision Pro listings on Ebay, only 44 have been successfully sold thus far.
In theory that means the vast majority of scalpers who thought they could make a quick buck by jumping in the pre-order line and then reselling their spot will be stuck footing the bill for a headset they themselves may not even want. However, with Vision Pro launch day right around the corner, it’s possible that another wave of hype will cause more to go looking for
Who is Buying These Anyway?
As for who is buying these pre-ordered headsets for a huge markup? It’s tough to say exactly but there are several possibilities.
On one hand, it’s possible that some scalpers are buying the headsets from themselves at high prices to inflate the apparent value of an early pre-order. On the other hand, there may be folks with excess cash who just had to have one on the first day and didn’t mind paying for it.
And then there’s people who are outside of the US but want the headset immediately, even before Apple formally launches Vision Pro in their country. At the time of writing, the headset is only officially for sale in the US, and Apple hasn’t announced when it will expand into other countries. For some, buying a pre-ordered from Ebay may be an effort to have the headset shipped to another country.
And last but not least, there may be large companies out there who want to get their hands on Vision Pro as soon as possible, either for competitive analysis or to try to get an early head start on integrating their software and services with the headset. A company like Meta, for instance, may want to get a handful of headsets as quickly as possible and isn’t going to blink at a $6,000 price tag.