Pricing differences

Roger Pozzi

Member
Messages
75
Location
Mount Vernon, Ohio
This is non-woodworking but, it shows the kind of thing that really irks me and, it can be an alert to others.
After re-arranging things in my office I needed a longer usb cable for my printer. Yeah, I know, new one have wireless technology, but this one works fine for me. Anyway, I went to Staples to pick one up and the associate there grabbed it off the display and told me it was $36.99. Instant anger!! I told him to put it away and I’d find one online. Another associate, a cute little girl :rolleyes: said wait, we price match. She went to their computer and brought up the same cable on Staples.Com for $6.99!! Really?? $30.00 difference?? They did the price match but that did remind me to always search for prices before going to a store.
Staples receipt 001.jpg
 
My girls and their husbands do this with their phones constantly before going in and while in stores. It is the only time I find myself thinking a smart phone would be handy. But on the other hand, it is a big reason not to shop. :thumb:

It is off the topic a little but these little tags so you can earn "rewards". What happened to just giving us the best price and let us decide? 30 dollars off. Doesn't that make you wonder how much you over paid the last time you went through the register line at that store?!:eek:
 
Well one of the big book stores has WiFi in their stores but won't match their own online prices and wonder why the sticks and bricks stores are having a hard time.. They let you price compare on their own dime but then won't match their own price....
 
Yep, we always check several online sites for pricing before buying anything. If you don't, then you deserve whatever you end up paying. I've heard a lot of people complain about pricing, then say, "I don't want to wait for XYZ Online Store to ship to me!" Well, then pay the price for whatever. :thumb:
 
LOL .. some folks are just born stupid...I have watched people on ebay, years ago, I don't do ebay anymore...just saying..lol...but I have seen people get into a bidding war on something and if you look it up, it has a buy it now price cheaper then what these idiots are bidding, not a little bit cheaper, but alot cheaper...I have to wonder why are these people still bidding, just go buy it already...jeez...do they not understand how to SEARCH...google is your friend...lol...I search the (you know what) out something before I even think about buying, somewhere..someone ..is selling it for less and free shipping, gotta get free shipping, that is where the savings is....
 
It seems that brick-and-mortor stores are trying to gouge the unknowing and unsuspecting as a last gasp before they disappear. I would prefer a different business model as I really enjoy actually going into the store and touching what I am going to buy. Experiences like that described make people NOT want to go back to a store losing them even more business. Its like businesses cutting services during lean times; just close, you're going to anyway if you don't provide the things that people go to your store for in the first place and you won't get such a bad rep.
 
My girls and their husbands do this with their phones constantly before going in and while in stores. It is the only time I find myself thinking a smart phone would be handy. But on the other hand, it is a big reason not to shop. :thumb:

It is off the topic a little but these little tags so you can earn "rewards". What happened to just giving us the best price and let us decide? 30 dollars off. Doesn't that make you wonder how much you over paid the last time you went through the register line at that store?!:eek:

We were in a Food City Grocery store earlier this week.. just picking up a few items the wife needed... went into the check out line, gave the girl my "rewards' card and she proceeded to check us out... when the tape came out, she looked at it, circled a number and said, "You saved $20.39...Thank you for shopping at Food City."..... my reply was, "I didn't save anything, I just spent $122.95".... her stare was totally blank.
 
I was going to say, those "Rewards" are a trade off. It allows them the ease of tracking you, to get better and more accurate data, which is worth more to them. (improves their marketing, allows better targeting, makes their data more sellable as well as being able to get more money, or money more often, out of you)
 
My iPhone has saved us a lot of money over the years, for example we are at Costco and my wife sees a blender that she wants, we check out www.kakaku.com and enter the make model etc, if it is cheap at Costco, we buy it, but often, too often it is not even sort of cheaper, so she just orders it on line and we save. I do the same with tools.

Works for me.
 
Chuck I tell them that every time. The problem is if you don't play the game with the card you do spend the extra 23.00. If you are in a store you don't have a card for always ask if they have a courtesy card. Or try and use the next person in lines card. The savings may not be real but the cextra charge is. I used to travel for work and was often out for a week at a time. I would often get a local card just for sodas and snacks. Probably had 20 supermarket cards at one time.
 
Chuck I tell them that every time. The problem is if you don't play the game with the card you do spend the extra 23.00. If you are in a store you don't have a card for always ask if they have a courtesy card. Or try and use the next person in lines card. The savings may not be real but the cextra charge is. I used to travel for work and was often out for a week at a time. I would often get a local card just for sodas and snacks. Probably had 20 supermarket cards at one time.

I only carry 3 "reward" cards for the grocer's we frequent, but my wife has a whole key ring filled with a couple dozen from when she did most of the shopping... I think she's still carrying a few from Houston where we lived 12 years ago. Most of the cards have your phone number in them (if you give it out) and the stores can look you up that way.
 
I used my smart phone recently at the blue borg recently to save well over $100 on a washer recently they will beat any advertised price by 5%. I had my wife pick out the one she wanted then using my Android phone I found the same mode 40% off from another nearby store. I showed the guy the price and he agreed to beat the price. I believe the total saving came to around $140.
 
I used my smart phone recently at the blue borg recently to save well over $100 on a washer recently they will beat any advertised price by 5%. I had my wife pick out the one she wanted then using my Android phone I found the same mode 40% off from another nearby store. I showed the guy the price and he agreed to beat the price. I believe the total saving came to around $140.

Do that once a month and it would almost cover the phone bill I bet.
 
I'm reminded of a big box blue electronics vendor who infamously had (has?) higher prices on their web page if you view it from one of the in-store computers versus what is shown from computers connecting from outside (in store matched the web price). I think the ubiquity of smart phones have mostly killed that nonsense.

Do that once a month and it would almost cover the phone bill I bet.

I'm not sure if this is the cheapest deal out there, but its close
https://fi.google.com/about/plan/
as long as you don't go hog wild on the data access it isn't to bad.

If you travel across borders it can be a pretty good deal as well, although reports on coverage have been that its still pretty spotty in a lot of places.

Downside is that it only works with the two newer phones, and they're not cheap so you'd need to amortize the cost of them over the expected useful lifetime - somewhere around $16-17/mo (I can't see why anyone would want the 6" phone personally.. but that's just me).

So figure real cost of around $40/mo with some minimal data usage.
 
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