ASIC - Purchase Used Hikvision 4 Ch DVR - Market Survey

Installation of security CCTV system has become a need instead of a desire in current world economic situation. I this drop back, I have also decided to opt the purchasing and installation of CCTV system at my home. In this blog post, I will be covering almost all the aspects of CCTV starting from market survey, my budget, installation issues and post installation details. This blog might get a bit lengthy due to the detailed process so i have decided to bifurcate the blog post and generate a few smaller posts which will be easy to read and comprehend as well as it will be related to specific issue.

Part 1: Market Survey

This first post will cover the market survey in Pakistan in July 2023 and purchasing part mostly. So lets start.

Whole working on CCTV started a while ago when we visited friend's place for dinner where we saw the functional CCTV system as they were able to see roadside parked vehicles as well as their main door whenever their doorbell rang. All that inspired us a lot and on our way back home me and my wife adored this idea and thought about getting the similar system installed at our home. But there were a couple of constraints involved. Now, let me introduce the constraint here which is usually the constraint of every middle class family, the buzz word "Financial Constraints". I discussed the prices of new CCTV system with my friend whose house we visited and he told me that the complete system with 4 channel DVR and 4 analogue camera with installation and accessories would cost us around PKR 35,000/. Well, this is not very high price but still its not advisable to spend this much price without getting knowledge of  market. 

Here comes the market survey. This started with the information provided by my friend, he quoted the above mentioned price for the Hikvision DVR DS7100 with 4 analogue cameras. Next phase was the online search using Google Search Engine, Daraz, Olx Pakistan and Facebook Market Place. 

Started my working with the Google Search Engine, where i came to know the two following major / famous brands available in Pakistan along with some other minor brands.

            1. Hikvision

            2. Dauha

 Dauha is rather a cheaper brand in terms of financial expenditure than Hikvision, as well as lesser famous as well because Hikvision captured the Pakistan Market quite earlier than Dauha. But Dauha is now capturing market quite quickly being cheaper in price and comparable specification of their equipment. 

Well apart from their marketing war, let us talk about the prices which were being offered to us. Dauha system of 4 analogue cameras was around PKR 28,000/ with accessories and installation. I tried to verify the prices of on Daraz as well which were more or less similar with the difference of around PKR 500/ to PKR 1,500/ only.

I discussed the matter with another friend just by the way to hear his story regarding CCTV. He opened another venue of search for me, the "2nd hand CCTV equipment in open market as well as online". I had heard about the Amazon and DHL undelivered product containers which are being imported by suppliers from different countries like UK, UAE, etc., and i also heard that prople are selleing these items using Facebook Market as well. Moreover, Facebook Market is also listing used items including electronics and security items like CCTV. So i started searching the DVRs, NVRs, IP Cameras, Analogue Cameras etc., and started asking the prices and specifications of items listed by the people. In the meantime, i also started the search on Olx as well, where I identified some ads by people and started asking them the same questions. 

"Bargaining is one of the most difficult Job to do." I came to know this fact when i started negotiating with people on Facebook Market and Olx. I took me around 6 days for searching and getting quotes and some of the best quoted i received were as follows

Sr. No.	Equipment Details	Price in PKR
1.	Hikvision DS7100 Series DVR (4 Channel and without HDD) - Used	7,000
2.	Hikvision DVR (8 Channel with 500GB HDD) - Used	15,000
3.	Dauha DVR (4 Channel with 500GB) + 4 Analogue Cameras  - Used	19,000
4.	Hikvision NVR (4 Channel without HDD)  - Used	17,000

Meanwhile, I also requested quote from Open Market for Hikvision DVR (4 Channel without HDD) - New, which was quoted PKR 11,500/. This price made me a bit confused as the best price for used DVR was PKR 7,000/ so i made up my mind to go for the new DVR instead of purchasing old/used one.

It was Friday evening and I had already decided that i am going to purchase a new Hikvision 4 Channel DVR along with 2-3 cameras as per my requirement. As i was sitting in front of TV and was watching Olx indifferently, a user ad went across my eyes, "4 Channel Hikvision DVR with 3 Cameras in 18,000 only.". I saw the pictures posted by this gentleman and analyzed the condition of equipment which was 9/10 to be very honest. I started chatting with him and the deal was settled on PKR 14,000/ for the whole equipment. I went next day to his marked place and excitedly picked the equipment and paid him money. I was so excited that i didn't even see whether the equipment was complete in all aspect or not, I just calculated 3 cameras and 1 DVR and paid him in cash 😆😆😆.

Lesson Learnt

YOU SHOULD CHECK THE WHOLE THING FIRST!!! In my case the accessories like (Power module of DVR is missing). Moreover, he forgot the administrator password of DVR which i asked him later on but he didn't remember it. It seams that i would have to work on both the issues now and i am on my own! Overall, i would not count it as a bad deal so far because the person i dealt with was quite a gentleman and apart from the above two flaws, things are fine so far. 

So here was the procuring story of DVR. I will be keep on posting about next ventures like installation which i intend to do myself and issues faced (if any). Keep reading!!!