How I Was Able To Purchase A Dan Case A4-SFX After It Was Sold Out.
Journey to SFFPC
I don’t remember how I stumbled upon the Dan Case A4-SFX, but when I really examined the case, I knew I had to have it. I knew I wanted a small case, after searching for the smallest SLI case here -I was obsessed with how small and powerful the case was. It was then I wanted to go even further. I wanted to know smallest case that can accommodate a full size GPU. And that’s when I discovered the small form factor (SFFPC) community. It was then I finally found the Dan Case A4-SFX. After browsing the main website –https://www.dan-cases.com/ and after many repeated visits, a countdown finally appeared on the website. The A4-SFX was to be launched on February 1, 2017. But, unbeknownst to me, Dan only made a few cases.
Sold out in minutes
The countdown ended and the Dan Case A4-SFX was available through Caseking.de and Overclockers.co.uk. Two sites that I’ve never been to. I was ecstatic. This was it -my chance to own the A4-SFX. It was around 3 am Pacific time. I had two Dan Cases A4-SFX in my cart ready to checkout on Overlocker.co.uk. I was thinking of building two PCs with these cases and try to sell one for a profit. However, the checkout button was not working. I kept refreshing and refreshing, but there would be an error page every time. The website was crashing. There were too many people trying to buy this perfect case. I tried going on to Caseking.de and had the same result. Why God?! Why! I stayed up for this, I didn’t think other people were into the same things as me. But it turns out they are; people are attracted to well designed products. I kept on trying to checkout for another 30 minutes until I gave up. I browsed the forums on reddit.com/r/sffpc and everyone was having the same problem. However, a lucky few were able to checkout using their mobile browser on their phones. So, I’ve learned that if you are trying to buy a hot product online, use your phone. It was too late trying to use my mobile browser to checkout. By that time all the cases were sold out. Even on Caseking.de. Completely sold out.
I reached out to Dan Himself
I wanted the case so bad that I reached to Dan himself -asking for any case lying around to purchase. I found his email on the kickstarter page here. This was his reply:
My search continues with YouTube and eBay
I was angry, sad, and selfishly impatient. I wanted the case so bad, to the point I was obsessed. I kept thinking about the case everyday and night. I have no idea why, I just loved the case. I kept searching YouTube for Dan A4-SFX unboxing or reviews and to my surprise there were some. I would type “Dan A4-SFX” in the YouTube search and filter the videos by uploaded date. This allowed me to view the latest videos about the A4-SFX. This also allowed me to reach out to the owners and ask if they had any “extra” cases. I would ask this question in the YouTube comments. I asked in the comments in all the videos I found. Since YouTube is a social network, somebody replied back to my comments and told me they had one selling on eBay. Confused, I would have caught that -because as I was searching videos on YouTube, I was also searching listings on eBay. There were no listings of any Dan A4-SFX cases anywhere on eBay. I thought maybe he hasn’t listed it yet. After messaging through YouTube, I finally was able to contact the A4-SFX owner through email. From there I able to see the listing as he sent the link directly to me. After clicking the link, it took to me an unfamiliar eBay. I could not read and understand any of the words on the eBay site. It looked exactly like eBay, but it was in a different language. It was German eBay.
Finally, it’s mine! How to use eBay.de and eBay.co.uk to get items not sold in U.S.
After constantly searching and thinking about this case, it was finally mine! I was able to purchase the case through German eBay! If you are interested in expanding your search, I recommend searching –eBay.de and eBay.co.uk. In this case, since the Dan A4-SFX launched on German and UK retailers, it makes sense that they would be on German and UK eBay. You can use your same U.S. eBay account on eBay.de and eBay.co.uk and it works. You just have to ask the sellers if they are able to ship to the U.S. and from there you can bid on the items. However, if the auction has already started and seller is not able to change the shipping region there is a cool trick you can do to allow yourself to bid on the item, but you obviously have to ask the seller to agree to ship to the U.S. first. Here are the steps:
- After the seller agrees to ship to U.S. -you can change your address to a FedEx shipping center in Germany, England, or wherever the seller is shipping to on the listing. As long as the address complies with the seller shipping region, you can use whatever address you like because the seller already agreed to ship to your “real address”.
- After changing your address to comply with the auction listing, you are then able to bid on the item.
This is a cool trick to bid on items that are listed in different countries. This is how I ended buying the case from a German seller for $384.57. The case did cost a lot more on eBay, however that is the price to pay if you are impatient like me and want the case badly.
