Are [H]ot Deals dying out?

R

RustedAngel

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
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Anybody else feel like the computer deals available have been on the meh side lately? I guess the fact that there's no major component I'm wanting to upgrade could have something to do with it. It just feels like sellers have given up on using low prices to induce reluctant consumers to buy.
 
Well we are getting further away from x-mas and vendors having excess stock to get rid of. also in these "economic times" companies just aren't going to float as many good deals to hook us in for upselling.
 
Well I mean the way competition is and has been going in the graphics card market with the 260 and the 4870, that whole segment has been a hotdeal.

As for others well...

I think they are still there just people are less inclined to spend the money and double guessing their spending more so than ever
 
I know... I just can't get my hands on a decent video card for less than $499.99 nowdays.....:rolleyes:
 
Just subscribe to an RSS feed of Slickdeals.net's front page deals ... you'll never have to worry about missing another deal. ;)
 
I think he's referring more to stores offering loss-leaders rather then the dropping of prices across the board. While prices are dropping everywhere, that is a result of the manufacturers cutting prices rather then the store's marketing.

A loss-leader, which many really hot deals are, is really just a marketing tool, and like all marketing it gets cut in a recession. As the profit that the average person provides decreases, the amount of money you can spend bringing them to the store must also decreases. People are far less likely to randomly buy some other high-margin item in a recession then they are in prosperity.
 
Yeah, I also already have a 260 GTX...which I got for $160 back in November after a ridiculous quantity of rebates, and my Q6700 is totally adequate, and I already have 4 GB of RAM. I guess the real story is I kinda already have the stuff I want that I'm willing to pay for.

I would like to have a 30" monitor, but even $750 is too much for me. I just don't spend that much time with my computer to justify that kind of money for a monitor.

Nemesis - I agree prices in general have been pushed down by low consumer demand. I think your analysis about declining use of loss leaders is pretty spot on.
 
Two things to consider:

1 - They seem to come in waves, because generally one or two sellers start a sale on a given product and that causes other sellers to create a similar promotion to stay competitive and keep sales volume up and not lose sales to the competition.

2 - In this economy, deals will be increasing, not decreasing. They need to drive sales, and you will see a sale announced just about any/every holiday or event that sales & marketing teams can make use of or dream up.



One area that seems to lack good sales, however, is the display market. Sure there are plenty of crappy Dell displays on sale, but that's because nobody in their right mind would buy most of them and they can't price them any higher or they'd never sell.
What we generally have to look forward to is upcoming technology releases that push the price of existing tech down.
However in the display market we've not seem anything released that outperforms -IPS based displays when it comes to low input lag combined with quality viewing angles and solid color gamut/reproduction and good black reproduction. You can get an MVA/PVA panel that looks just as nice but sucks for FPS gaming due to input lag. Or you can get a TN panel if you are using it as a dedicated gamer display (or just hate life and want to torture your eyes). This is why IPS-based displays still command a higher price point (excepting the one cheap Dell display but that has its own quality issues, as seems typical of Dell these days). The speed of TN and the image quality of *VA. And it's also why few brands use them (why bother when they can put out an inferior display that will sell more and for a cheaper price).

But as long as my 2007WFP S-IPS panel doesn't die I will keep holding out as prices slowly come down and eventually maybe there will be a great deal on an actual quality IPS display or the economy will tank enough that everything will become cheaper. =)
 
yacoub35 said:
Two things to consider:

1 - They seem to come in waves, because generally one or two sellers start a sale on a given product and that causes other sellers to create a similar promotion to stay competitive and keep sales volume up and not lose sales to the competition.

2 - In this economy, deals will be increasing, not decreasing. They need to drive sales, and you will see a sale announced just about any/every holiday or event that sales & marketing teams can make use of or dream up.
Click to expand...

That's old school economic theory. Many businesses have been designed to very tightly control the amount of inventory on hand, and minimize the impact of inventory. Suppliers like Intel, and stores like Wal Mart, Amazon (and possibly Newegg) are set up to buckle down and you will start to see smaller guys go under. I wouldn't be surprised if TigerDirect followed CompUSA soon.
 
Yes, that's going to happen also. Only the big dogs will survive, but when the economy expands again, new start-ups will arrive to compete with the big dogs who will make the mistake they always do of raising prices when competition dries up. It may be old economic theory, but it's still sound. It can account for the changes in inventory strategy. :)
 
yacoub35 said:
Only the big dogs will survive
Click to expand...
Those best able to compete, and innovate, will survive.

Of course that group often includes many of the "big dogs" but there are some sick giants out there such as Sears/Kmart, and some that have already gone down such as Circuit City.
 
I'm waiting for Best Buy to dry up, they have these "psuedo" sales and their sale prices have been
found to be higher than internet regular prices. Most of the smaller players can go away also,
they have bad cust service and bad prices. I like most of the bigger guys because the service
is better, New Egg, Amazon.com ect.
 
yacoub35 said:
2 - In this economy, deals will be increasing, not decreasing. They need to drive sales, and you will see a sale announced just about any/every holiday or event that sales & marketing teams can make use of or dream up.
Click to expand...
Not now, they won't. As others have pointed out, the usual super hot deals that we find are sold at a loss or at cost, often purely for strategic marketing reasons or to spur sales of other items. Those get cut back in a period of recession.

So, the main hot deals you'll find these days are manufacturers cutting back prices to increase sales, or clearance of old/discontinued stock.
 
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