Taking a trip to Zimbabwe

So my grandfather invited me on a trip to Africa. He needs a travel partner mainly to just remind him to take his meds and in case he has a medical issue.

I know several buyers that ship CPUs to different African countries but none in Zimbabwe. Currency troubles, bread shortages and power blackouts might not make for a real great place to do business with. But like someone mentioned recently in a thread about scrap prices. If you can do business when things are bad you are poised to make good money when things pick up.

Anyway over the next couple months I am going to be trying to reach out to potential buyers.



I will have 2 free days in the capital city Harare. I really want to check out some scrap yards and hopefully meet with some CPU buyers.

Local listings in Harare, core 2 duo, 2gb ram, 160gb HD for $70-110.
4th gen i5 CPU 8gb ram $250-300.

Going to have to get some shipping estimates.

I would love to find a laptop buyer and take a suitcase full of them with me on my trip.

Anyway...the safari part will be fun and seeing some local scrap yards will be a cool bonus.

I can loan you 100 Trillion Zimbabwe dollars....

Do the prices you quote include the what the going rate is for the graft involved in doing business in most of Africa...? I wouldn't ship anything to a place like that unless I had some real currency in hand first-- make them trust you more than you need to trust them. Or don't ship anything there you're not prepared to totally loose. Just saying...

Originally Posted by hobo finds

What currency are you going to take? I think they don't deal with the USD. Also check out the local beers. Sounds like a fun trip!

Well up until about a month or so ago USD was more than welcome because their currency is so weak but USD was outlawed for local(in country) transactions. I am still looking into exactly what I need to have for currency. But i have an impression that places who don't do digital transactions they will probably still accept USD even if they are technically not supposed to.

Local beers are a must. Also looking into maybe doing some fishing. Ya know maybe even one of those cool guided trips where the put the fish on the hook for you lmao

Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Do the prices you quote include the what the going rate is for the graft involved in doing business in most of Africa...? I wouldn't ship anything to a place like that unless I had some real currency in hand first-- make them trust you more than you need to trust them. Or don't ship anything there you're not prepared to totally loose. Just saying...

The prices I quoted were retail so yeah that's included lol. I like to get $15 per unit on core 2 duo small form CPUs and $13 for towers +$6 for 2gb ram and 160gb HD. If I can make that I can send containers.

As far as payment. Not 100% yet but there are escrow services for things like this. There economy is in what seems to be the start of a real rough spot going through an over night currency change.

Anyway even if nothing comes of it, it will be good to maybe learn something about the CPU market there.

Wow lol maybe I should keep up with foreign affairs a bit more. Thanks for that.

The thread got me curious so i went searching youtube for a old video of what Zimbabwe was like after they inflated their currency by one million percent. I couldn't find the video but there were a ton of other hits on the search term Zimbabwe inflation.

It's informative. BTW ... not all of the videos are negative. There was a nice on tourism in the falls area that was done recently.

It's interesting to check out all the comments.It's an unfiltered version of how the people there really feel about America and the US dollar. It might be just a bunch of idiots running off at the mouth and blaming all of their problems on us. On the other hand ... it might be that they have a legitimate beef.

Anyway they may not like us, but with 90% unemployment, they probably like our money.

As it currently stands, you've got to convert US dollars to the new Zimbabwe dollars in order to do business locally ?

It sounds like another scam with their history of inflating the currency. It would be different if they had a better rep but i wouldn't trust those guys.

Maybe you could do an end run around the law with some kind of barter & trade agreement ?

Maybe it would be legal for them to pay you in a hard currency like gold or silver coins / bullion ?

Originally Posted by blackgold12

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Maybe, just maybe. Not likely good advice to circumvent US sanctions. There's a new sheriff in town, backed by the US military. You might want to rethink your advice before making a public comment on how to circumvent sanctions.

To be fair I believe he was talking about getting around Zims ban on the use of the USD.

Originally Posted by hills

The thread got me curious so i went searching youtube for a old video of what Zimbabwe was like after they inflated their currency by one million percent. I couldn't find the video but there were a ton of other hits on the search term Zimbabwe inflation.

It's informative. BTW ... not all of the videos are negative. There was a nice on tourism in the falls area that was done recently.

It's interesting to check out all the comments.It's an unfiltered version of how the people there really feel about America and the US dollar. It might be just a bunch of idiots running off at the mouth and blaming all of their problems on us. On the other hand ... it might be that they have a legitimate beef.

Anyway they may not like us, but with 90% unemployment, they probably like our money.

As it currently stands, you've got to convert US dollars to the new Zimbabwe dollars in order to do business locally ?

It sounds like another scam with their history of inflating the currency. It would be different if they had a better rep but i wouldn't trust those guys.

Maybe you could do an end run around the law with some kind of barter & trade agreement ?

Maybe it would be legal for them to pay you in a hard currency like gold or silver coins / bullion ?

Yeah the new admin in Zim to me is clearly implementing a currency to try and control the exchange rate while they inflate it. Short term funding of gov before the currency undoubtedly fails. Kinda hard to run a gov when your expenditures are 30% of the GDP and you can't print your own money because people are using USD.

I would prefer no Gov created money other than to coin real currency. But hey. You have to exploit your citizens somehow! lol

****...I was looking for some land to farm too! lol

Actually I was reading about how Zim seemed pretty happy about the farmers who made the move from SA to Zim.

I guess I am just a risk taker but nothing so far as made me rethink doing business if I could, of course do it legally.

I sell to a buyer in Juarez. So if you don't know...Businesses that import into Juarez are almost certainly cartel connected/ make payments to the cartel.

Also make more sporadic sales to A business in Sinaloa.

Much like businesses in Africa they come here to buy our second hand electronics. If i can be the one to make the sale that is just fine with me.

I'm amazed that there isn't more civil unrest with all of the economic hardship the people face. Can't imagine what an economic collapse on that scale would look like here in the states. You would think it would be a state of complete anarchy.

I guess business is business though. Where there's a will there's a way. It would be a tough challenge but there must be some way of doing business with the Zim. The importation of refurbished consumer grade electronics could improve their life. I would imagine that their standards are quite a bit lower than ours. It could be an outlet for smaller screen computer monitors core 2 generation towers. Maybe outdated servers as well ?

Their power is 220 though. The PSU's would switch over easily but i don't know about some of the other stuff.