Buying a Secondhand Laptop in France

In France, there are numerous ways to buy used items, whether online, in the streets or in brick-and-mortar shops. French buyers peruse brocantes (flea markets) looking for bric-a-brac bargains and antiques. The vide-grenier is the equivalent of a car-boot sale or yard sale. Then there’s the braderie, where local shops set up stalls outside and sell goods at reduced prices. The market for second-hand goods in France is huge, but where might one shop for a second-hand laptop? Or any other electrical products, for that matter? There are numerous places to look, some of them peculiar to France and others not.

Common Secondhand Markets

Naturally, the French buy a lot of secondhand items through the same channels as other consumers across the world. If you were looking for, say, a second hand MacBook Pro or reconditioned iPhone in France, you might try these popular solutions:

• Amazon.fr – Previously owned high-tech items and other products are easy to find on the vast French Amazon site. Third-party sellers sell goods through Amazon Marketplace.
• Ebay.fr – The French use eBay prolifically, just as other nationalities do. With laptops, of course, using the local eBay site makes it easy to find a machine with an AZERTY keypad.
• Facebook Marketplace – A great way for locals to sell second-hand items to each other, often avoiding the hassle of postage and potentially allowing inspection of goods before purchase.
• Rakuten – A popular online shopping store where shoppers can buy new or second-hand goods, including laptops, smartphones and tablets.

French Second-hand Markets

In addition to the global second-hand marketplaces mentioned above, the French have their own online spaces for buying all manner of pre-owned items. For electronic items, these include:

• Cdiscount – Owned by the French Casino Group; many product types can be bought new or used via this website. There are reconditioned items aplenty with reassuring guarantees.
• Leboncoin – A huge second-hand marketplace online, very commonly used by the French. Here, it would be easy to find popular used laptops locally, like the MacBook Pro or the MacBook Air.
• Fnac – Fnac is a store that has no equivalent in some countries, stocking a huge range of electronic devices as well as books, Blu-ray discs, DVDs, CDs and vinyl records. Fnac sells reconditioned/repaired laptops through its 2nde Vie channel or through third parties via Fnac MarketPlace.

Whether you go global or pick a French vendor for high-tech goods, it’s easy to save significant money by shopping secondhand in France.

Written by Rebecka