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Where Did All The Online Bargains Go?
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.
It might just be the economy/state of mind of the people right now. Who knows what dubjah will do tomorow. Stores don't want to sell to cheaply right now b/c of the small economic drop we had a little while ago. The US economy has been going up since what? 94 or something like this. Little drops prevent the big ones.
Carpe meam simiam!
Well, Anonymous Coward, you have a lot to learn. I can spend 5 minutes on Ebay finding what I need (sold New-In-Box, probably purchased by the seller directly from a box store), or two hours looking through dozens of e-commerce sites for each individual item I need. Ebay sells items at prices that individuals are willing to pay. If a person wants to pay 20% over retail, who are you to call them morons? Oh yeah, you're a coward.
Have you seen the return lines at Wal*Mart, Kmart and Target? People buy retail crap and return it too because it was not what they thought it was, despite their seeing photos on the box in-person, and maybe even seeing a display model. Why should Ebay be held to a higher standard?
I don't feel particularly inclined to look at their prices on other hardware.
-Legion