Where Did All The Online Bargains Go? 337
cornflux writes: "There's something I've wondered recently -- 'Where did all the good deals go?' It seems I'm not the only one -- Business 2.0 has an article about the noticable lack of bargains available online, today. The author covers obvious reasons (dried up VC, need for real profit) and some others (pseudo-price fixing). The one thing that was missed is the ever-increasing number of morons who will pay full-retail price + 20% for things on eBay." Note that the piece is largely theoretical -- I've found consistently better prices on the web, even recently, than I have in-store for electronic goods, as well as obscure DVDs which I couldn't find locally anyhow.
A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, there's an easier way than that to avoid paying outrageous prices for stuff on ebay.. When bidding simply figure out what the item is worth to YOU and put that in as your bid. Ebay will automatically raise your bid in the minimum increment as other people bid until they outbid what you're willing to pay. If that happens just move on to another auction... One thing I've found that helps is pick an odd amount for your maximum bid.. For example, if you're willing to pay $100 for something, enter your bid as $102. Most people will have $100 as their "too high" line and bow out of the bidding. I've won several auctions that way.
Shayne
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:2)
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:3, Funny)
This is not a parody. I am, unfortunately, serious.
(1) A well maintained second-hand item is more valuable than the same
item brand new.
(2) 10% off list price is a deal--no matter that shipping costs
20% more.
(3) A picture is worth a thousand pennies.
(4) Feedback is more important than profit.
(5) Any item may be rented for the price of shipping one-way, but
BEWARE! Sometimes this may garner profit.
(6) It is better to pay 30% more and win a six-way bidding war than to
be the only bidder on another listing of an identical item.
(7) An item listed for $1 sells at $15. An item listed at $10
sells at $10.
(8) An unsorted collection "found in my attic" is more valuable than
one professionally appraised.
(9) Categories are for weenies.
(10) 90% of all items sold on eBay were previously sold on eBay.
Re:A fool and his money are soon parted. (Score:2)
Most of it is people getting caught up in a bidding frenzy, as if an eBay auction is some sort of game. People seem to forget that the idea behind eBay was to uncover good deals on stuff, not to let the price spiral out of control because "I've just gotta win this."
I think people's unwillingness to keep this in mind has worked to my favor in some circumstances, though, so I'm not complaining too much about other people's stupidity. :-) A few years ago, I sold a Mustek flatbed scanner. I had had it for about a year and had just replaced it with an HP ScanJet 4p. I bought the scanner new for about $270 and would've been happy to get $100 for it...it got the job done, but it was slow as hell (despite the SCSI interface). IIRC, it got bid up to over $200. I wouldn't have paid that much for it at that time (hell, the HP only cost me $100 as a demo item), but someone was crazy enough to do so. (Maybe it got bid up like that because it was in the original box, but selling a scanner in its original box isn't exactly like selling (for instance) an Enterprise Christmas tree ornament ("NCC-1701...no bloody A, B, C, or D") in its original box.)
The bloom is off the rose (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The bloom is off the rose (Score:2)
I disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Just my 2 cents.
Re:I disagree (Score:2)
That's the one great thing about shopping online. I don't have to put up w/Jeff Cerullo telling me the 300 greatest things about the 300mhz Celeron Compaq 6788.
I go in, I search for what I want and I buy it. I usually still save about $20 to $50 from what I would pay in Best Buy.
www.pricewatch.com is what I normally use for most computer shit. I use Amazon.com to get most of my obscure books, and I shop at Meijer for my DVDs. They beat Amazon's prices before shipping and usually have a decent selection of movies the day they come out.
Manufacturer price fixing (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found consistently better prices on the web, even recently, than I have in-store for electronic goods
There was a related article [nytimes.com] in the NY times this week about electronics manufacturers who inflate their list prices so that retailers can easily offer their goods at a "bargain".
Re:Manufacturer price fixing (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is my axample, First they tell you their price (par for the course) then they tell you their markup from *their cost* (perhaps a note about cost of running the business, with a reference to their standard markup).
Then the markup would not be based on some artificial standard, but on a real hard dollar value of the product and the cost of getting it to the consumer. Then you would really know if your were getting a bargain or just their regular sale price. No hype, no sales pitch, just a smart business with informed customers.
With this kind of honesty, a business would have my loyalty.
Re:Manufacturer price fixing (Score:2)
The lemminglike masses would throng to the cheaper product because money is money and lemmings, as a population, have no loyalty.
Be honest now, how many of you signed up for the eService to only get the $2 DVD then canned the account and never bought from there again?
There are examples where loyalty can be depended on, (Harley Davidson and Chevy Corvette have a very loyal following.) but there are very few businesses that can operate that way.
Re:Manufacturer price fixing (Score:4, Interesting)
Then the markup would not be based on some artificial standard, but on a real hard dollar value of the product and the cost of getting it to the consumer. Then you would really know if your were getting a bargain or just their regular sale price. No hype, no sales pitch, just a smart business with informed customers.
The problems are:
1. There is no real direct link with price to cost, other than companies want the maximum margin possible. Pricing depends on what someone is willing to pay, not how much it costs to produce a product.
2. There is a point where the cost (time and money) of price shopping outweighs the savings. As a result, there is no real reason for companies to cut prices to the lowest possible point, since the chance taht they'l get an extra sale doesn't provide more additional revenue than a slightly higher price (and fewer sales).
A stores goal is to maximize their profit - not give you the best possible price.
Re:Manufacturer price fixing (Score:2, Informative)
Travel Deals (Score:2, Interesting)
No True Just need to look (Score:5, Informative)
Often you have to go thru a special Netpage or input a comment for getting the PriceWatch price. I find it a bit annoying but understand the reasoning.
Re:No True Just need to look (Score:3, Informative)
After going to Pricewatch, make sure you look up the business on ResellerRatings.com [resellerratings.com].
With few exceptions, the price is proportional to rating. The lowest prices on Pricewatch are almost always from disreputable resellers.
Changes in Pricewatch policy!! (Score:3, Informative)
Online comparison shopping vs. brick-and-mortar (Score:3, Informative)
Two and three years ago, online sales were a mammoth below-cost bazaar. But as the entrants found they had to achieve profitability, and this quarter, they started to disappear. In some markets, brick-and-mortars took over their competitors that were threatening to bury them only a few months before. For instance, take PetSmart's buyout of pets.com, or KB Kids' buyout of eToys.com (a spectacular flamout). This is natural, and in the long term, for the better. What are left are in fact the low-overhead guys, the ones who didn't start with enormous, get-rich-quick dreams. There's still a lot of vendors making money over at the Yahoo stores, believe it or not.
Pricewatch, PriceGrabber, et al are in the online comparison shopping business. All of them charge their merchants for listings; the real question is how. With Pricewatch, the vendors are charged based on the number of products listed, which means you essentially get a list of whatever the retailer thinks are his strongest sale products at the moment. There's two disadvantages for the site visitor (consumer) in this: first, it reduces the breadth of merchants, and second, it hides a fair amount of products. Pricegrabber does a better job of this simply because their underlying pricing structure doesn't automatically discourage merchants from showing more products. (Of course, there's nothing preventing merchants from being selective for their own reasons, but at least it's not an issue financially.)
From personal experience, the difference between online and brick-and-mortar prices is narrowing generally, but that doesn't mean there aren't bargains out there. Where I use our own site most is on unusual items that most b&m's won't stock (for instance, SCSI drives). Even when looking at more commodity items (ATA drives, CD-R media), it pays to at least check prices online to see whether the price delta and convenience factor combined are worth it to you. (For many people who don't live near big cities, online is the only realistic option and a great salvation.) Also, don't forget that there's a much broader selection available online than off. It's not unusual to find a product available online that even big-box retailers are out of. I recently bought a Samsung N501 DVD player through a merchant on our site that was not only substantially more expensive at our local Best Buy, but out of stock as well.
Re:pricescan seems to have better prices (Score:3, Informative)
Seeing it's a shameless plug by you, I did check it out.
Athlon XP 2000+ Pricewatch: $284 - Pricescan: $315
Athlon XP 1800+ Pricewatch: $143 - Pricescan: $148
PC2100 512 MB Pricewatch: $116 - Pricescan: $135
Maxtor 80GB Pricewatch: $115 - Pricescan: $125
I'm guessing your significantly better experiences come from your working there, more than price comparisons in a similar market.
-Spackler
PS: Moderators, is it really a troll or a flame when he said to check it out, and I just did a little research on the subject to save my fellow slashdotters a little time? I think not.
Umm, plenty of deals, try the deal sites (Score:2, Informative)
I think if you walked away with an Empeg car unit for $199 rather than the original $1k++ pricetag, you might feel otherwise.
Some things are still cheap. (Score:2, Informative)
Ebay rules (Score:2, Funny)
As the saying goes, if you take a dump in a box and charge $5 on ebay for it, is it really worth $5?
People shop online for convenience, not price (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Walmart is world's largest retailer, employer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People shop online for convenience, not price (Score:3, Interesting)
* You can't touch them. Would you buy a mattress online, for instance?
* You don't necessarily get enough information.
* It's harder to return.
* It's not necessarily cheaper, either.
* Searching for a product all to often yields too many results, not to few, most of which aren't relevant.
E-Commerce, ebusiness, e-whatever... It's a really fancy, sophistacted modern day catalog ordering system.
Re:People shop online for convenience, not price (Score:2)
I spent just over $24k online in the last year, and price was always the first thing I looked at. I do still buy things locally, but if I can save a buck by buying online, I'll do it.
Convenience probably ranks 3rd or 4th. Some things are so esoteric that you can't find them locally, but that may be part of convenience. My big number two is that I'll always go with a smaller merchant, or a merchant known for providing good service. Part of me constantly roots for the underdog, so if I can pass on the big online and local retailers and still get a price within a few bucks of what I'd have paid, I'll do it every time.
From my POV, good riddance. (Score:3, Insightful)
The death of these businesses has been a good thing for my online bookstore [page1book.com], which is an addition to a business that has been around for twenty years. Now we can reasonably compete with fair prices, whereas before it was hard because of all the damn giveaways and businesses selling merchandise at a loss.
Its not a good thing for the economy in general if you have a bunch of businesses blowing through venture capital by selling their merchandise at a loss or giving it away. But that was the business plan for a great many merchants trying to establish themselves online. Good riddance, I say.
Re:From my POV, good riddance. (Score:2)
What you meant to say was that they lost money on every sale and compounded it with volume.
actually it was bad for the economy, very bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically: you cannot waste money in that magnitude without having a bad effect on the economy underneath. The subsequent crash and hard times for many techies can be directly related to this foolish overspending -- too many techs were hired in a hurry, so salaries went into the stratosphere, attracting many people into technology that would not otherwise have gone there. Now, there are too many techs, the unemployment rate is high, and salaries are dropping fast.
So, if you're a techie, you should be at least a little bit pissed about the 'stupid venture capitalists'. That money you saved on DVDs, etc. will be deducted from future paychecks.
Re:From my POV, good riddance. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad for businesses based on a sustainable business model (because they can't compete with products given away at a loss). Soon after it is bad for consumers, because (a) the dot-com is out of business (for obvious reasons), and (b) the competition is also out of business (they couldn't compete and make a profit). At this point, the only place the consumer can buy from is the MegaCorps that were able to afford to compete at a loss for a long time. Now the MegaCorp can raise its prices as much as it likes, since it has no surviving competition.
here are so many idiots with lots of money out there, maybe I should start selling miraculous "herbal medicine" (aka grass) on eBay. There's nothing wrong with exploiting morons. They're morons, it's their own fault for buying that crap.
While nice in theory, this attitude doesn't work in real life. That's why we (in the USA, anyway) have agencies like the FDA [fda.com].
Re:From my POV, good riddance. (Score:2, Informative)
The FDA does not regulate herbals. That is why they are all required to have a disclaimer that says "These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any disease"
Someone sould sell ground up acorns and say it reduces the risk of cancer, and the FDA wouldn't do anything about it. In fact, most popular herbals are BS scams like that.
Re:From my POV, good riddance. (Score:2)
That depends stongly on the barrier to entry for the busness. If it is high like designing a CPU, then yes a monopoly can exist for quite some time (esp. if there are complex patents involved). For selling the same kind of stuff online you would in a local shop, the barrier is quite low.
As long as someone thinks there is enough of a chance to make money to risk a $100,000 or so you can build an online store (or far less, depending). Or someone that has a real store front may do an online version for far far less.
I don't think we are in danger of a monopoly on online camera, book, CD, and other random crap stores.
Where Did All The Online Bargains Go? (Score:4, Funny)
Everything in the store is marked down 0.05%!
(no, that is not a typo)
Sounds about right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies finally realized that they can't survive on razor-thin and non-existant margins. The stores that thrive on the 'Net will be ones that offer things that can't be easily found locally -- like the stuff at PCMods, ThinkGeek and all kinds of collector goods. It's also easier to set up a distribution system online for products that don't have a wide appeal, so only producing and shipping a small number makes sense. (Computer badges come to mind...)
Playing the pricing game doesn't really help in the long run -- the stores don't make enough to survive, and it hurts the companies who make the products. If people get used to the idea, for example, that they can buy Red Hat at cost they'll be reluctant to pay full price -- ever. If online stores run enough promotions, people simply learn to wait for the next deep discount instead of buying when they want the product.
I still prefer to do my shopping for many things online (books, computer parts) but I'd rather browse when looking for CDs or clothing.
price and perceived value. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can remember a lady at a coffee shop who started selling more cakes of a specific kind when she raised the price. Same product. The perception of the product was that it must not be any good if it was being sold cheaply, but it was alright if it came close to the expected price point.
Of course, with databases, etc, you can quickly find the optimal price point for almost any product online, from a sellers point of view.
Of course, experts know how to do better.
Re:price and perceived value. (Score:2, Informative)
They were the same cookie, but people answered that the ones that came from the jar with less cookies were more delicious.
That's a classic for anyone who went to college and studied Advertisement (like I did for 2 years), but it's always worth to remember.
And of course, you can enlarge this 'rule' to several other areas. Diamonds/gold are expensive because they are rare. And brunnete women are hotter in Sweden because the predominant feminine type there is blond.
Anyway, the article is temporal. Sophisticated customers is, if true, at maximum, a temporary effect. More and more 'common' people are using the internet, and this trend will only continue to rise in the future.
And you know, despite what many people think, most rich people do NOT spend a lot of money. On contrary, they SAVE a lot. There are a lot of more millionaries in the world than the guy from your school that got a expensive car from his daddy. And the tip Nr. 1 from these abundant but hidden rich people is: "Save every penny".
I think the study made by Charles Wood had such fallacy on it, and what in fact happened is that he justified the higher prices with a limited cause, and not the contrary. That's usually not how decent social researchs are done.
Re:price and perceived value. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, gold isn't rare, it just costs more to extract it from seawater than it's worth. Aluminium used to be more valuable than gold, but once a way was discovered (by two people, independently, at about the same time) to cheaply extract it from bauxite, its value dropped.
Diamond supply is similarly well controlled - primarily because the suppliers have more to gain by higher prices than by flooding the market.
Oil producers, however, stand to gain more by cheating on qoutas, which is why it's hard to maintain cartel prices.
And brunnete women are hotter in Sweden because the predominant feminine type there is blond.
Sounds like an arbitrage opportunitty - we ship you brunettes, you ship us blondes.
Re:price and perceived value. (Score:2, Informative)
And yes, two months' salary is too much to pay, thank you very much...
(I recall an advertisement that aired several years ago that showed a woman receiving a diamond ring, but only in silhouette. As she was being presented with the diamond, they cut to a close-up that looked very much like she was getting ready to perform oral sex on the presenter of the ring... Doesn't take a genius to figure out the point of that commercial...)
Pricewatch (Score:2)
www.buy.com
and sometimes amazon.com
I buy books at amazon and it's cheaper than the bookstore, even with shipping. The others have the cheapest computer stuff around.
The only reason to buy something on ebay is if you can't get it anywhere else. Like collector's items, or imported goods. And in those cases it's ok to pay over retail price.
There have always been idiots who would pay twice as much to get the newest video game system the first day it came out. But now there is a place in which they can actually get it.
The internet still has bargains, you just have to know where to look.
Why aren't there any bargains online? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why aren't there any bargains online? (Score:2)
Most of those sorts of places died out about the same time as Queen Victoria..
Market stabalization (Score:3, Interesting)
But when the market is in flux, all rules are off. Retailers may sell at a loss, and manufacturers might "dump" product onto the marketplace (in lieu of sending it to a landfill, as they often do).
With the Internet economy what it is, retailers aren't willing to sell at a loss for market share, and the tech economy is in a somewhat conservative state (for now).
So no agressive price cuts, but no outrageous prices.
Except for MS Office, of course.
true about the eBay buyers (Score:2, Interesting)
I also agree about finding less bargains around, as it's been hard to find new sources of eBay resellable items on the web.
It's just evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of those online price breaks were to encourage people to try online shopping. As more and more people start to buy online, the need to offer incentives goes down and the need to actually profit from online business goes up. It's a classic ploy that even Homer Simpson recognized: "Get us addicted then jack up the price!"
As for the auction sites, it shows to me that sellers are starting to take them seriously. In the past people might have put up a bit of old junk to see how the auction site worked. If it sold for next to nothing, that was okay - chock it up to research. Now, sellers know there are people out there willing to pay for hard-to-find, high demand items, and they set their minimum bids accordingly.
Of course this quasi-recession we're in isn't helping matters, but I think that's only a small part of it. To me this is just the natural evolution of doing business online.
ebay (Score:2, Interesting)
30 port 10/100 Rackmount switch = 30 bucks
complete HP Jornada still in box = 100 bucks
it takes alot of looking around but if you spend enough time waiting and watching you can find a heck of alot for nothing near the retail price.
Pay more for quality (Score:2, Informative)
Now when I buy online, I don't even bother looking for the cheapest price, because I want to know I will recieve my product. I order from reputable big-name companies such as Amazon and WalMart.
Re:Pay more for quality (Score:3, Informative)
You never just buy from whoever has the cheapest Pricewatch entry. I've bought plenty of stuff from vendors who list their prices with Pricewatch, but I always cross-reference a vendor with its score at ResellerRatings [resellerratings.com] to get a feel for whether the company in question is on the up-and-up. Since I've started checking prices this way, I've gotten reasonable prices and I've never been burned.
I had a set of scripts that would search Pricewatch for an item and ResellerRatings for vendor scores, and then merge the two together so that you'd get scores alongside prices. I'm not sure if it'd still work, since it relies on screen-scraping (HTML parsing, really) to extract data from the two websites. (A quick check indicated that the sites have changed enough that the scripts would need to be fixed.)
Market Trends (Score:3, Interesting)
What I mean by this is that for high turnover items (moves fast into and off of the virtual shelves in terms of sales volume), like new software, DVDs, PS2 games and CD-R blanks, will be almost identically priced. In fact the real storefront is sometimes cheaper when you take taxes/shipping into account. (note: this doesn't take into account rebates)
For items that aren't as fast to sell like older computer hardware or even new hardware that has a fast obsolescence track, online stores have the advantage for their own savings since it doesn't cost them as much to store the old inventory. In some cases the retail environment will be in such a rush to get rid of the equipment they will drop prices a lot lower than they should, just to clear space. Couple this with the fact that as a full chain of stores they have better bargaining power with the manufacturers and can get lower initial prices.
What this means is that for normal transactions an online store can sell older stuff for cheaper and sustain that price, but when new product lines come out, the physical storefront may or may not have a greater discount, depending on how well they manager their warehouses.
Basically we are in a situation where all of the discounts of online business are lost on the items that we buy the most, and they no longer have a nest egg of excess cash to pay for significant price differences.
Impact of RIAA? (Score:2, Informative)
eBay (Score:2)
Re:eBay (Score:2)
On one hand, when I sold my 1st Edition AD&D DragonLance Campaign hardcover, I got *triple* the cover price (I can't imagine this was collectible, folks). On the other hand, I just participated in an auction for a new set of taillights for my car (don't let the neighborhood kids ride their bikes near your car) and had it bid up well over the MSRP for replacement parts from your local Ford dealer.
People on eBay ain't so bright. Moral of the story? Sell on eBay, don't buy.
Morons? Trolls running /. now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bypassing the obvious trollish nature of the word "morons," allow me to educate you. People who live in rural areas cannot walk down to the corner Wal*Mart, Kmart or Target to buy cheap crap. Contrary to popular believe, box stores have not infiltrated every city and town yet. Some people have to drive 100 miles or 6 hours, whichever is more inconvenient.
Much of this cheap crap is not sold online, so these people must use sites like Ebay to buy products that are otherwise unavailable to them. Paying more on Ebay is cheaper than the alternative.
Re:Morons? Trolls running /. now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's the moron again?
Re:Morons? Trolls running /. now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because your trash is another man's treasure, don't assume that man's an idiot.
eBayers will bid on anything, even an empty box! (Score:4, Funny)
This got a lot of press at fark.com, so people started posting spam auctions. One was for a normal carboard box with an X posted on it [theregister.co.uk], saying "this is not an XBox". It went to $130 until ebay pulled it!
Re:eBayers will bid on anything, even an empty box (Score:2, Interesting)
The difference on eBay is you have a huge bidding population, so there are more stupid bidders out there that will pay more than an item is worth.
Items like Xbox have a lot more stupid bidders than say, Cisco Routers, IMHO. I don't think the empty Cisco Router box auction would work. Then again, someone could be desparate for an original box to ship it in...
Think of your customer (Score:2)
If I was thinking of buying a $700 16 port switch. Ebay is probably the last place I'd check. That looks to be a switch used by businesses and professionals. Not a switch used by individuals.
I'm guessing that the business world probably feels a little unconfortable about buying business products on someplace like ebay, and thats probably the people you want to buy it.
Its sorta like trying to sell managed business-class hosting, or a mainframe; I doubt either would sell on ebay unless they were an insane steal.
Re:eBayers will bid on anything, even an empty box (Score:2)
The State of DVD (Score:3, Informative)
I used to be particularly fond of reel.com and dvdexpress.com. The former offered some really spectacular deals-- mostly "loss leaders" on major titles (I remember getting "The Matrix" for $12.49) so they could attract the unsure, never-shopped-online buyer, particularly on pre-orders. (It was the equivalent of CompUSA offering a $500 computer on the front page of their flyer, so that the casual customer might be tempted to wander in.) The latter site had generally better prices on the everyday titles. Comparison shop and you'd find great deals, typically better than with retail stores (even with shipping factored in).
The situation these days is terrible. Reel went bust and became a front for buy.com. Buy offered less impressive prices, but it was still sometimes better than shopping in the "real" world. That fell through, or something, and now Reel is a front for 800.com. It's not even worth the time to look.
DVDexpress is even worse. Like most of the rest of express.com, they just sort of stopped shipping product for a good long while as they figured out their financial situations, then reopened their store some time later-- with the kind of prices you'd expect to pay at Suncoast.
These days, if I'm looking to buy a new DVD, I'll most likely drive to Best Buy. They're not always the cheapest sticker price, but shipping isn't a factor, and except in particularly rare cases, this means the final cost is less. I've found that the websites attached to retail stores-- bestbuy.com, circuitcity.com, and so on-- always sync their prices with their real-world counterparts, so they're only useful if you're wondering how much you're going to pay when you get to the store.
The only beacon of hope? I'm in love with deepdiscountdvd.com. They have some screwy prices at first glance, sometimes even a buck, buck and a half more than the other sites, but this is because they also offer "free shipping:" you're going to pay exactly what you see. The site is particularly nice when it comes to, surprise surprise, pre-orders. My hope is that they don't sell out to one of the larger online retailers, because then shopping online would become exactly what we're all afraid of for the net: it'd be nothing more than a counterpart to a small assortment of large real-world corporations.
I really miss the old days, when those of us willing to brave online shopping were treated to unreal deals just because the sites needed to get attention. This is what ate the sites alive, I'm sure, but damn if I don't love the idea of getting cheaper movies because of some sucker venture capitalist.
And don't even get me started on shopping for books online.
Re:The State of DVD (Score:2)
Auctions implosion coming (Score:2)
As is obvious now, more often than not, unsuspecting consumers will end up paying more than retail for a used product. Who knows, maybe they are paying a premium for the excitement of bidding...but thats a stretch. More likely they simply aren't aware that the product is available for less, brand new.
Also, many sellers are no longer individuals or hobbyists, but professional middle men. I personally know of people who buy in bulk at Fry's and then move the merchandies on EBay, once again, for a profit. This trend has taken the fun out of web auctions and has turned it into a volume operation.
Re:Auctions implosion coming (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't like profiteers that don't add value any more than it looks like you do, but if the seller buying stuff at Fry's and turning it for a profit is making it available to people who don't have access to the temple that is Fry's (me, for example), why shouldn't he be entitled to make money doing it?
Re:Auctions implosion coming (Score:3, Insightful)
if the seller buying stuff at Fry's and turning it for a profit is making it available to people who don't have access to the temple that is Fry's (me, for example), why shouldn't he be entitled to make money doing it?
Didn't you just describe a distributor? This isn't profiteering, it's just normal business. Profiteering would be those Coke machines that tied the price to the temperature.
Re:Auctions implosion coming (Score:2)
The Great Bargain Rush (Score:5, Informative)
Here are links I always use when Pay Day comes around. Some of them aren't rock-bottom deals, but they are quite reasonable (i.e. better than Best Buy):
Computer Stuff
www.techbargains.com
www.newegg.com
Video Games
www.ebgames.com
www.easybuy2000.com
DVD's
www.dvdpricesearch.com
Books
www.bestbookbuys.com
www.bookpool.com (they have more used i think) Price Comparison
www.pricewatch.com
www.pricescan.com
I'd love to hear from others on this, I wouldn't mind saving more! :)
Re:The Great Bargain Rush (Score:2, Informative)
Bookpool [bookpool.com] is invariably the cheapest source for Computer books (I recently bought Effective STL by Scott Myers for 20% off list, and Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu, also for 20% off list.
You might also check out MyCheapBook.com [mycheapbook.com] for effective price comparison (although it doesn't examine bookpool).
Arbitrage (Score:3, Informative)
When buyers have limited information on pricing, sellers can charge a wide range of prices in different locales. As better communications and hence better pricing information becomes available, prices become more uniform. This is initially due to arbitrage (buying a commodity where it is priced low, and reselling somewhere else at a higher price). Later sellers are forced to make their prices more uniform to compete effectively.
A similar effect happened over a hundred and fifty years ago with the invention of the telegraph (see The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage). The Internet initially allowed consumers to a) gain pricing information instantly across the world and b) order goods priced far lower than those available locally. Anecdotally, I've noticed local prices of computer parts at local retailers used to be consistently higher than on-line prices. This is no longer true, frequently I can get better buys from local retailers.
Web is inefficient (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason is that despite what Amazon.com and the others want to tell you, the web is a less efficient way to shop than in a major store.
Why is this? Shipping. It makes a lot more sense to ship 1000 items to the store and have individuals pick them up than it does to have 1000 items shipped to 800 different locations in 900 different packages.
Once real-world stores start having online shopping and real-world pick-up, the prices will fall again.
The Online Used Book Market, ABE Books and eBay (Score:4, Informative)
eBay, on the other hand, is an entirely different can of worms. Buyers (and, alas, sellers) range from the very knowledgeable to the completely ignorant. For science fiction first editions, most of the people I know on there will open another window and search for a particularly interesting item on ABE before bidding on eBay. But there are many people who will bid several times what an item is listed for on ABE just because they don't know about the latter.
This is not to say that ABE has completely replaced the local speciality bookseller. For example, I still buy quite a few things at Adventures in Crime and Space [crimeandspace.com], Austin's local SF shop, because I know the owners, its convienant, and many times you see things browsing that you wouldn't know to look for. But many speciality shops are themselves on ABE, especially given the tough post 9/11 business climate.
A free bookbuying tip: Many times, the exact same copy of a used book listed on ABE will show up on Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com, but at 2-5 times the price listed on ABE. That's because ABE has "affiliate" programs that allow such books to be listed on those services, but B&N and Amazon always jack the price up to give themselves a hefty profit margin.
As for conclusions beyond the world of books: Whenever possible, use search engines that give you listings from many different dealers. (It also helps if you have a service like ABE that kicks dealers off if they receive too many complaints.)
I've been wondering the same thing (Score:3, Funny)
Oh well, at least I can still check the price of transistors at radio shack with my free barcode rea^H^H^H CueCat:!
I tried running my cuecat: across a printout of slashdot's website, and it took me to some weird goat site, not sure what's up with that...
Ebay+20% haha so true... (Score:2)
Anything that is video/digital but light (shipping) is really crazy on ebay. I was looking for a DLP projector instead of buying a huge ass tv, the amount of video projectors that I saw completed or some of the reserve prices were so crazy, the thing is USED and I could get a refurb unit from the manufacturer CHEAPER with a warranty and a new light bulb! This is just too "x-file" for my understanding, I can understand for a 50$ joycam digital camera, no hassles and you get it, but when it's in the 4 digits, usually, unless you're rich or not spending your own money, you'd tend to shop a bit to see the prices and compare... if you're rich enough to buy something in the 4 digits without even shopping for it first usually you can afford a new unit... this is why I'm wondering if these people are actually morons or it goes deeper than this (like gambling problems), ah anyways, the only thing I can say is: good for the sellers
Re:Ebay+20% haha so true... (not necessarily!) (Score:2)
1. I've been researching a good DV capable camcorder to purchase. (Got a kid on the way, and I think it makes sense to get something to film the baby.) I limited myself to camcorders in the "under $1000" range, because I simply can't afford more than that. Basically, I concluded that Sony makes some of the best DV camcorders, but current models are $1200+ each. The PRC-730 happens to be a last year's model that's in my price range (when you can find one), and meets all of my qualifications. I keep seeing them on eBay with starting bids in the $400 range, but bid to around $700-800 by the close of the auction. I thought maybe eBayers were just over-paying for this thing, until I checked pricewatch.com and called around. The camera stores advertising clearance pricing on this camcorder want around $690-790 which sounds better *until* you find out they're typically selling the Japanese version. It's "grey market" in the U.S. so has no warranty, and the manuals are in Japanese! All of them I've seen on eBay have been the real U.S. version with 1 year factory warranty, so score one for eBay being superior!
2. I have a Sony Mavica FD-81 digital camera I'm ready to sell. It's in like-new condition with real light use. Paid about $700 for it when it was new, only a year or so ago. I can see letting it go for about half what I paid, new. On eBay, nobody's bidding over $130 or so for these things right now! What the h*ll?? I'd be really pissed if someone bought my FD-81 for less than the cheapest of the clearance megapixel cameras sells for at the store! For under $200, I'd rather just hang onto it. I sure don't see these "dumb eBay bidders" bidding 20% over retail on the FD-81!
Re:They need a "Hey Jackass, go here" option.... (Score:2)
there still are deals (Score:2)
Bargains? Here you go! (Score:2)
The following sites offer deals usually involving coupons/rebates/price mistakes on websites. Some of the cooler deals I've gotten:
Free HP Deskjet 930C via Estamps rebates.
5 Belkin PCI 100mbit NICs for 81 cents each
$30 16X CD-RW
And more... go forth... and spend!
Sites:
http://www.bensbargains.net
http://www.techbargains.com
http://www.slickdeals.net
http://www.hot-deals.org
or if you like to go right to the source, most of the above sites patrol these forums and post the good ones:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/categories.cfm?
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm?cati
Tip for using pricewatch... (Score:2)
It's all about the (lack of) sales tax (Score:2)
Gotapex.com (Score:2, Interesting)
(I'm not associated in any way with the site, blah blah...)
Bad Online Experiences (Score:3, Interesting)
Another time, I tried ordering a computer kit online (pricewatch), I was about to give him my credit card number when he suggested I upgrade to their special CPU cooler which was "better" than the one that came with their product. I asked him if there was something wrong with the cpu cooler that came with it and he said that while the cpu cooler that came with it was perfectly good, it only consisted of a fan. I spoke with him a few minutes to try and figure out exactly what he meant and determined the actual cpu cooler included in his 1.33GHz Athlon kit was somehow without a heatsink. Click.
Yet another time, in a fit of insanity, I decided to order a new video card online saving about $60. Everything went smoothly, I ordered from a company in California for about $270 (US). A week and a half later, it arrived with a return address somewhere in Brazil. I have no idea what I would of had to do had the product been defective (thank god it wasn't), but I'm sure it would have been hell.
Perhaps, bad experiences online have driven consumers away from these vendors and forced the online retailers to raise prices. Maybe most of the bargains out there never really existed anyway. As a kid scrounging for money to buy stuff, it sometimes makes sense. As a professional with a decent salary, buying online often isn't worth the risk.
Re:Bad Online Experiences (Score:2)
I, too, rarely trust online bargains. When I want a deal to go down well, I'll spend some time getting the best price and then take that price to CDW. They've never turned down a price match I've brought to them.
I learned to do that when I was 14, and buying a Commodore 1571 drive. When everyone was selling it for $160, I found a magazine ad that I swear had to be a typo.. $45 instead of what should've been $145. I brought it to a local store that did price matching, and they honored it! I always view online buying as "first find the best price, and then find the best retailer".
I just recently started trying out eCost. So far, so good, but I haven't tried any price matching on them.
I've got a question. (Score:2, Funny)
Price comparisons vs web technologies (Score:2)
Technology companies have been pushing the cost savings in the new way to do business, and the new ease in finding the lowest prices available. But it seems the retailers are slow to adopt because it would mean making life much easier for consumers to find the best prices.
Imagine a Pricewatch that had fully automated pricing and one-click buying. We were supposed to be there a couple years ago.
Well.. (Score:2)
I can't see a clear reason why online sales should be cheaper than in-store sales. Where does the cost saving come into play?
If the net has done anything, it's helped globalizes prices. You don't get as much region to region fluctuation in retail items anymore. (I didn't say NO fluctuation, just less. There is still plenty)
As for people paying retail +20%, absolutely.
I saw a guy selling silver maple leafs (1 troy oz silver bullion, Canadian Mint) for market price + 50%. And people were buying.. because it was a 'collectors item'(It's not, it's silver bullion that you can pick up at a bazillion outlets at spot price)
Don't forget mail-in rebates! (Score:2)
Furthermore, it seems to be popular to "hide" the rebate notices and forms, so only the truly savvy shopper can take advantage of them. I just bought an Epson Stylus Photo printer, only to discover there was a $50 mail-in rebate on it when I looked around on Epson's web site. The Officemax store I bought the printer at had no knowledge of the rebate. Then, I got a new cellphone last week, and found out from a message forum on the Inet that Kyocera was doing a $50 rebate on it, too. Unfortunately, the only known place to get this rebate form was in the back of a particular issue of a mobile computing magazine! I had to run to CompUSA and buy the magazine to get the form.
I guess my point is this: Bargains are still out there, expecially on computers and electronics. It's just that now, you have to use the net as more of a research tool to find out where and how to get the discounts. It's not so much that a web-based store will sell you something dirt cheap, outright.
Deals still exist (Score:2)
disagree with... (Score:2)
Just have to know where to look. (Score:2, Interesting)
these are the hot bargains I've found (Score:2)
www.overstock.com [overstock.com] - Overstock.com... lots of good stuff for cheap with a flat rate on shipping of $3.95 no matter how much you put in the box
flamingoworld.com [flamingoworld.com] - Great place to find coupons and such
overpaying on eBay = bad credit (Score:2, Interesting)
two places i check first (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, Nextag [nextag.com]. Similar to Pricewatch, but has more than just computer related items.
A good source for hardware (Score:2, Informative)
YMMV
Ebay vs. Common Sense (Score:3, Informative)
Rather than paying $800 or $1000 for what I wanted, I emailed the guy selling the receiver I had just lost. He offered to sell me the receiever for his shop's actual retail price of $650 + actual shipping. Sweet. I got it two days later, double boxed and in perfect shape.
I've since bought an SACD player the same way.
WAY better than dealing with the morons on Ebay.
Re:Canada (Score:2)
Re:Canada. Ever consider... (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite a few people have considered it. However, most Canadians have too much respect for human rights and international law to join a nation which routinely ignores both.
(And if Canada did merge with the US, it would do so as 13 new states, not as one. Without the unifying influence of being "not American" Canada would fall apart entirely.)
Re:What ebay is good for..... avoiding microsoft t (Score:3, Funny)
Where isn't?
Re:morons buy off ebay? (Score:2)
Re:International costs of P&P (Score:2)