Can I make money FIXING Amazon RETURNS?

I've seen a few of these videos, and I wanted to see for myself if it's possible to actually make money from one of these things.

I picked it up from eBay for £66 in total... Is anything going to be faulty, or is it just a pile of random crap? Or, maybe, a bit of both!

Let's fix what we can and see how much money can potentially be made from these things...

Hope you enjoy!
Steve

PS. I'm not an expert in repairs at all. I do this for fun, and it may not be the best or safest way to go about repairing broken stuff. I'm pretty good at melting plastic though. Please don't copy me - I'm an idiot.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 What's in the box?
04:31 Sensational Spreadsheet of all items
06:46 The faulty things
07:16 Item 1 - Nokia Streaming Box 8000
15:38 Item 2 - TWS Wireless Earbuds
19:07 Item 3 - LeMega Portable DAB Radio
24:03 Item 4 - HyperX Cloud Mix Buds
28:21 Item 5 - Sony SRS-XB23 Speaker
37:05 Sensational Spreadsheet update and results

If you want to make a device donation to the channel, please use the following PO Box. PLEASE NOTE that this is not a repair service, and all items are non-returnable.
PO BOX ADDRESS: StezStix Fix?, PO Box 415, BOLTON, BL4 4AZ
Please only use this service if you are a UK resident and using Royal Mail, otherwise they'll probably lose it.

Some of the magic things I use to break stuff;

Filming equipment;

Links are affiliated where possible to help support the channel. Nice.

[StezStixFix]

Stupid Amazon Return Box Thing



I put this here as a spoiler saver, by the way. People get very annoyed if the top comment is "you idiot, you broke everything" or similar. Gives the game away, I guess.

[robinw]

It's a Sustainable hobby. In our 'throw-away' society with so much unnecessary landfill, this, for me, is a hugely enjoyable video. And it also unintentionally provides basic tuition, which gives me the confidence to try to fix some of MY broken stuff. I've subscribed 👍🏼

[ewingaaron]

Love the "buy a box of unknown crap and see if you can fix it" format!! Let's see another!!

[gogades]

I can't believe you re-assembled that Sony speaker before testing it. You're a mad man.

[rebel]

As someone who worked in PCB manufacturing for a decade, I can tell you that the small metal shavings you had in the streaming box are extremely common, especially with cheap manufacturers. For the grounded parts of the connector, check for the largest soldering tip you can get. As ground is a large layer and you also heat up the whole connector when soldering, you really need a lot of heat that's hard to dissipate by either one of them.

Depending on the soldering iron, you can get some very thick spade types you can also use for BGA reballing. Otherwise a thick chisel tip will work okay. Makes everything so much easier.

Little edit: I've been working with a Weller RT station and their tips, I'd highly suggest that, as it makes working extremely comfortable. But the price might be a little much. Completely worth it though. You can even find DIY versions of an arduino soldering station for the tips, which only causes you to have to buy the expensive tips. However, it's absolutely worth it, can't recommend them enough.

[ZeroLimitz]

"I can see clearly now the solders gone"

Just gold haha. Appreciate your humor and mindset going into these projects, keep up the great work my friend 🤘 love your content.

[natsterjam]

Well done Steve!
Excellent video with multiple fixes, which as far as I'm concerened is a BONUS!
With an Extra BONUS:
Most of these types of videos when completed say "I've made (X) profit"!
Which absolutely infuriates me as there is ZERO profit unless you have actually sold the items.
You on the other hand Steve are correct when you said that the profit would be if you sold them, which might be a tiny difference to some, but for me is EXACTLY how to do these repair and profit videos.
Love ya brother 👍💖

[RobertCatiller]

Fascinating how many repairs are simply damged ports. I'm learning lots from these videos. 👍

[BrennanYoung]

I'd like to see a part 2 of this: "What happened when I tried selling repaired Amazon returns on ebay" or some such.

[fitterhappiermoreproductiv]

How funny it is to have someone opening one of these boxes and hopping that things actually DON'T work! 😂

[MyklBlue]

Aw cool that 2nd item, the earbuds with power bank, i have those exact earbuds for years. They're awesome, great sound, but lately the battery is starting to not last so long so now I know how to open them, and what kind of battery it has. Thanks Steve!

[ShadowcasterZero]

As far as quality control goes, my Grandma was a quality assurance lead at IBM. You can't test every piece of a production run if you're making thousands of units. So you test random samples. So it's very likely you'll get a number of production errors from an outside factory.

[brandoncolemire]

He didn’t even stop to wipe the blood away. That’s commitment. Everyones Gotta give a ‘Like’ to this one. The man bled to bring you premium content for f*cks sake! 😂 Yet another great video, Steve

[knightnevermore]

nice fixes, as always.
The thing that always gets me with this Amazon returns is the audacity some people have. They are using a product for months and then kill the USB port. And since it's still in the warranty time, they just return it for whatever reason (stopped working) and it just goes straight to these returns resellers or into the trash, because Amazon surely doesn't care about them being fixed.
So good job, giving those products a second life because some people are just too careless with their stuff and Amazon also doesn't give a damn about our planet's resources. I hope you get your money plus a good bonus back from ebay for those items!

[justinparkeradams]

For things with lots of tight clips like on the Sony speaker, I use cheap guitar picks. You get a big pack of them and just put one in each spot with a clip to help release them.

[cloudrunningpanda]

I absolutely love all your videos. Been watching your channel for a couple months now, and im glad i found it.
I watch them as i troubleshoot electronic repairs at the thrift store i work at 😊 and learn a ton

[frankbaron]

i cheered really loudly when yu got that Nokia working. my neighbours probably think i'm mad

[stefandowney]

Welldone, favourite fix was the Sony speaker - I have a headphone amp somewhere that was doing similar they were meant to send a replacement but it hasn't arrived, you gotta love our far east friends - it could still be in the post somewhere, if not I can console myself with some of their sweet n sour pork Cantonese, but that aside I might as well have a look at the port on the knackered one I have and see if I can do anything about it. Keep it up, your still one of the most wholesome British 'entertainers' on YouTube. Thanks, Stefan, Jersey, Channel Islands

[MC]

I bought an earbud from Amazon, different brand, but similar in price to this HyperX and after a few months of use the left side stopped working, exactly like this one. No sound, but touch controls were working fine. Right side was working perfectly. I tried to factory reset according to the user manual and it didn't work. Because it was still under warranty I contacted Amazon through their customer service channel and they provided me a different factory reset procedure. According to them, there were two versions of the same product but with different settings. I tried the alternative solution and It worked like a charm. It has been 3 years now and it still works fine.

[sigma-zero]

I do something similar to you but with sewing machines. one came in the other day it cost £1800 4 years ago and even the manufacturer was extremely unhelpful and claimed they could not get the part. In the end the part cost 94pence to fix it. Love your channel your and witty humour.