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12 Christmas Gifts Not To Buy Online
nsingapu writes "While online shopping is booming this Christmas, niche products like "two turtle doves" purchased on the Internet are becoming increasingly more expensive then their non e-tailed counterparts. PNC bank has updated their annual tongue-in-cheek economic analysis, based on the cost of goods and services purchased by the True Love in the holiday classic, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." The analysis compares the cost of traditional goods against their cost thoughout the past 20 years and against the price when purchased online. PNC concludes that most items are more expensive to buy over the Internet, primarily due to the cost of shipping, and that the abundance of cheaper labor in countries such as India and China has resulted in pressure on U.S. manufacturers to outsource."
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The internet price of swans appears to be skyrocketing. Must remember to get all of my swan supplies from local swan merchant instead of Swans-R-Us.com.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Saying that online shopping is more expensive than the high street doesn't make sense - one thing's for sure there's a lot more choice online..
UK Laptops
I'm a nerd, I don't buy gifts at all you insensitive clod, I just receive the ones in my (rigorously) ThinkGeek wish list!
Indeed, with the dollar *tanking* like it is, the cost of Christmas can be expected to take a sharp upturn even in terms of currencies like True Love and Monopoly Money.
I'd be a lot more inclined to laugh if this weren't so serious. The financial security of our country is at serious risk given the astonishing rate of decline in the dollar since the election. With the Chinese selling off dollars like hotcakes, costs of toys made in the Orient, such as DVD players, PDAs, and iPods, will be just a little higher this year and the trend will only continue.
I hope everyone can eek out a Merry Christmas this year. It may be your last in while. With the mercantilist economic policies of the Bush Administration only likely to continue and with confidence in US financial institutions at an all time low and dropping, everyone should just make sure this is a Christmas to remember. Next year, you may not be able to give your kids anything more than a hug and an yellow onion.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
A Proud Member of the Reality Oriented Community.
Why does the "Core" index exclude the swans?
The sad thing is that some people are going to read this tongue-in-cheek analysis and really think that the Internet is more expensive because of shipping. From an economic perspective, purchasing commodity items on the Internet is more efficient than slogging around from store to store to find the cheaper price. On the Internet, you have nearly infinite choices. I guess if you compare purchasing an item in Best Buy to purchasing an item on bestbuy.com, you might come to the conclusion that purchasing things in the store is cheaper because of shipping costs. But if you compare the cost of purchasing an item in Best Buy to the cheapest listed cost of buying the same item on pricegrabber.com, pricewatch.com or any of the other thousands of sites that show the cheapest price, provide coupons for purchasing on the Internet, etc... The Internet will win every time.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Online shoping is attractive mostly because of the time that it saves. Another factor is transportation cost, which AAA calculates to be 56.2 cents per mile, which it appears PNC did not account for in its calculations. And from their cost breakdown, it doesn't look like AAA is even taking into account medical costs, which is why I personally try to minimize the number of miles I drive (fear of injury or death).
Somewhere online one can buy Swans and Milkmaids??
UK Laptops
Where exactly is the cheapest source of 'Lords a leaping'? Somewhere in the British isles or can we import some cheap Lords from India?
Drumming Drummer (12 pack)
Customers who bought this item also bought these items:
Golden Rings (5-pack)
Turtle Doves (2-pack)
Pear Tree with Partridge
A license to SCO unix...
...3 French hens, or has that been changed to 3 Freedom Hens?
As for offshoring, it damages worker's rights and environment in the USA. Chinese companies do not pay the cost of worker's rights and privileges (e.g. disability insurance) and the cost of protecting the environment. Hence, Chinese companies can undercut American companies.
If you see a product that is "Made in China" or "Made in India", simply do not buy it. As investments in Eastern Europe increase, you can find alternative products that are made there. Unlike the Chinese, Eastern Europeans are committed to Western values (e.g. worker's rights and environmental protection). Buy "Made in Poland" or "Made in Slovakia" (like the tail lights on my car).
The Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
...Four calling birds...
...Five golden rings...
...Six geese a-laying...
...Seven swans a-swimming...
...Eight maids a-milking...
...Nine ladies dancing...
...Ten lords a-leaping...
...Eleven pipers piping...
...Twelve drummers drumming...
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I've found that bleached pigeons work just as well as doves. It's a good thing.
Whether it is at SAMS club, where everything isn't always a good deal, or online, you just have to be smart about what you buy. And as far as shipping, it is even possible to avoid that. For instance, if I want something from Amazon.com that cost 15.00, with their free shipping for orders over 25.00, you can pick something else out that costs 10.00...and get free shipping. I was able to get a couple of DVDs from Amazon for about the same price I could have gotten them at Wal-Mart...with the exception that Wal-Mart has a limited selection of DVDs and Amazon has a huge selection.
I do agree though, even ordering stuff off of Ebay, some people really try and stick it to you on shipping.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
They didn't say where the items were bought.
Prices flucuate from town to town and state to state.
If services were more expensive, perahps you could just buy your true love a trip to another country and give her some of the gifts there. In China, they'd probably cook the turtle doves for you and you wouldn't have to take them home.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I'm not sure I even want to comment on this one. Let's just say that I could find this on the internet for way cheaper than even $41...
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
You see you just got to start dealing in bulk goods
Notice how once you start buying in bulk in 11 and 12 the internet is cheaper. I have always wanted my own marching band and better get them now price seems to be increasing.
If you combine the best prices from the Internet and "Traditional" shopping, you'd spend $13,717.91
Specifically, the cost of 12 Drummers Drumming and 11 Pipers Piping is significantly cheaper on the internet, and you can obtain five gold rings for $15 less on the internet than traditionally.
Although, I wonder exactly what comes with "11 Pipers Piping"...
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
A sharply falling dollar will mean our labor prices will go down compared to those in China and India and eventually manufacturing will start flowing back. In other words, we will be getting that inshoring stuff they always talk about -- that is to say, marginal jobs in manufacturing and low-end computer maintenance.
Still, this will all come at significant costs in terms of standard of living. A lot of our thinkgeek wishlists will fill up, but not empty. No Playstation 3 for little Billy. Indeed, we on a one-way train to becoming the Argentina of North America. Such frills will take a back seat to food and shelter.
A Proud Member of the Reality Oriented Community.
"most items are more expensive to buy over the Internet, primarily due to the cost of shipping"
:)
Most items are, however if you're willing to try smaller stores (reviewed by Reseller Ratings, Epinion or another neutral place) several are offering free shipping so you save on both shipping and sales tax (if applicable in your area). Not to mention several of the smaller stores allow promotional coupons which are usually only for first-time customers but since when do us geeks show loyalty?
Then again, some do have spam;del;del;del;del;mailing lists to receive more coupons codes for future purchases.
Wow, these guys don't know where to shop. I can get a lot more than nine ladies dancing for only $19.95 per month on certain sites... and dancing's not all they do... heh heh.
You're right about low prices online, tho - I haven't purchased anything major in a B&M store for years. Free shipping and no sales tax (provincial) is your friend!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
The pear tree online is only $2 more than buying it locally. (Which is well worth it to avoid having to haul it home yourself.) It's the live birds that are expensive to ship--$15 local versus $67.50 over the internet for the partridge.
...went from 40.00 dollars to 42.00 dollars. DVDs are cheaper than ever even with the dollar. I didn't vote for that stammering yutz, but your tired old progressive musings are staler than a fruitcake. I hope you don't think your're going to win back the red states with that tired old progressive song and dance.
When I shop online it isn't necessarily because I can find a better price (although you usually can when shopping for computer parts). It's because whatever I want isn't availalbe locally.
cheaper labor in countries such as India and China has resulted in pressure on U.S. manufacturers to outsource
That's cool with me; 9 American girls bopping to synth-pop aren't nearly as hot as 9 Indian girls gyrating to their respective traditional music. And if the 9 Chinese girls are in those long form-fitting Chinese dresses with the slits up the side... whoa momma!
I'm always surprised at how useful simple things like this can be. Look at how, over the years, the breakdown of the costs has changed from the goods being expensive, to the services being expensive. Mind you, I'm not convinced this is entirely due to cheap outsourcing to china, since most of the goods aren't manufactured, but are agricultural produce.
Interesting too to see how other factors play such a part; the pear tree is more expensive not because of pears per se but because of increased diesel costs. And the gold rings are cheaper, despite gold prices rising, because they are unfashionable and so retailers are dropping prices ot stimulate demand.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Let's deal with the categories that you propose, and I'll show you how to buy "Made Outside of China".
* clothes -- Plenty are made in Sri Lanka. Go to "Old Navy" or "Mervyns", and you will find plenty of Polo shirts that are made in South Asia.
* computers -- Stick with Sony. Many of its laptops are assembled in the USA.
* television -- Try Magnavox.
* toys -- tough one. I'll get back to you.
* onions -- easy one. Shop at Whole Foods Market. It is one of the few groceries that explicitly identify country of origin.
The situation will not become worse as we start to import more and more from Eastern Europe. Safeway branded apple juice mostly comes from Eastern Europe.
Oh. One more thing that is "Made Outside of China" is my 45 Magnum. I plan to use it "Within China". (just kidding)
I'll go one further: The Dali Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, fled to India when the Chinese invaded and it was in India that he set up his government-in-exile. And China has invaded India in the past too.
Sorry, but it's this sort of ignorance of the highest magnitude - not realising that China, the world's largest communist country, and India, the world's largest democracy, are two seperate countries - that has people who aren't American rolling their eyes and dismissing Americans as stupid. I mean, have you ever heard of anyone anywhere who assumes that the US and Cuba are the same country? Because that's the closest analogy I can come up with to thinking that China and India are one and the same.
To the original poster who made this dumb assumption I have this advice: it's better to say nothing and have people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Oh, and read a book too every now and then. Believe me, right now people like you are giving your country a very bad name the world over.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You've got to be joking, what's happening is the rest of the world that's been used as a sweat shop for the past 40years is just starting to catch up and probably helped keep the markets high over the last 10ish years.
Expect things to start costing a lot more in the future.
The UK's done really well on this one, we don't product any food, most of our manufacturings offsured etc.. This has helped keep inflation down (cheap imports) with the added benifit of reducing local CO2 and CH4 emmissions.
Other great plans included the steady reduction of taxes over the past 20years, resulting in no-one having a pension, poor dental care and housing being almost unaffordable (that's where the pension money went then!).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The Canadian version would be quite a bit cheaper, and not just due to the dollar.
8 comic books
7 packs of smokes
6 packs of two-four
5 golden touques
4 pounds of back bacon
3 french toasts
2 turtlenecks
and a beer... in a tree.
Of course you will notice 12 - 10 are missing due to time constraints, but we know at least one of those should be donuts.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
I live in New Jersey. I ordered four books from Protoporia a Greek online bookstore. The four books I ordered only cost a total of 26.24 Euros, which compared to the price of books in America is decent. One of the books Thanos Vlekas(in Greek) only cost me an amazingly low price of 2.81 Euros, while the English translation of the same title cost $17.95 at Amazon. The problem is that shipping from Greece cost me 17.20 Euros and took 10 days. There is no alternative for Greek books though, there is no real Greek bookstore in the entire United States. Some stores in Astoria have a few Greek books but they are not bookstores, and it costs over $12 dollars alone to pay for tolls to drive there. All in all in this case though the shipping price is very high, there is no alternative, even driving to New York for books because of tolls would cost almost as much, something to keep in mind about online shipping, even driving out of your area can cost alot with tolls, gas, etc.
Your point about the value of time (and implicitly, not dealing with Christmas shoppers up close and personal) is great.
But in fairness, AAA's cost estimation used annual depreciation and insurance rates -- two things that aren't really "marginal" in cost.
If you own a car, whether or not you take that one trip to the local strip mall, your depreciation and insurance costs won't change. Therefore, the marginal cost isn't 56 cents a mile, it's far lower. Petrol, actual wear and tear, oil and air filters, fluids, etc must be accounted for. Even the probability of an accident and it's accompanying costs should be considered.
Depreciation? No way. Insurance? Nope. You were going to pay those costs if you bought that TV at Fry's or at priceline.com .
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I suppose you also "meant to do that" when Iraq turned out to be the disaster anticipated.
W isn't up to anything and Greenspan is actually worried about this state of affairs. Perhaps he should also seek professional help. W is a political idiot and an economic one too. He's running the country into the ground the same way he did his oil companies. The falling dollar is a symptom of his fiscal incompetence and it will have serious implications for the American worker in the next few years.
Of course, corporations and rich investors will be able to move their holdings into Euros and Yen so they will dodge much of the inflationary and devaluing effect of a quickly dropping currency. That's good news for bourgeois sycophants like yourself: Your boys in the ownership class will get off scott-free after taking the country for all it's worth.
Meanwhile, you'll have an especially Merry Christmas knowing you won't have any homosexual marriages in your state this season. Enjoy!
A Proud Member of the Reality Oriented Community.
...the abundance of cheaper labor in countries such as India and China has resulted in pressure on U.S. manufacturers to outsource.
No way? Cheap labor is why companies outsource? I always thought it was the highly skilled workers, the high level of quality, or maybe even their great location relative to their customers. Good thing this analysis found this or else we'd have been left in the dark here!
~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
Though it's a bit more complicated if online shopping allows (makes it easier, whatever) you to do without a car at all...
Shipping is a pain but the worst thing is when you get caught for import duty.
I bought a camera from a pretty good US company (Cameta I think), and it was about 250 euro cheaper than buying it here in Ireland.
Unfortunately when I went to collect from the mail-room, I found out that they wouldn't let me have it unless I paid then around 100 euro import duty or something like that (it was a while ago).
it still worked out cheaper overall though.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Doesn't PNC own parking garages in Downtown Portland, OR?
What I want to know is, what exactly are "Lords a-leaping", and where can I buy them on line?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
From Geek.com
...
On the twelfth day of Geekmas my True Geek gave to me
12 O'Reilly handbooks.
11 cups of caffeine. 10 Help Desk persons screaming.
9 Linux distributions.
8 viral virii.
7 routers routing.
6 Geeks a coding.
5 Handsprings!
4 SDRAM chips.
3 PS2s.
2 Xboxes.
and
a real working Bluetooth device.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who want to generalize Christmas and just call it a "holiday" we have to be politically correct and alienate the Christians by renaming the song "The 12 days of Holiday". Which holiday you ask? Well, ask all those who want to generalize it. Maybe they mean the 12 days of Labor Day.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Next time my wife wants me to take her shopping, I'll use that statistic. Wow, what a great stat -- hopefully it'll let me stay home on Sundays to watch my games.
Linux at home
Depreciation has two components: mileage and age. My guess is each contributes half to the devaluation of a car. So depreciation has a significant -- I say half, conservatively a third -- marginal component. Taking an off-the-cuff estimate calculation done in my head, the AAA cost estimate excluding non-marginal costs still comes out to 25-30 cents per mile.
I heard this very appropriate phraise during a church service once.
" Are the gifts you bear to you families and
loved ones created by hands guilded by the
creativity generated by the spirit of true
love; or are they put together by hands
driven by the fear of the point of a gun
held by a slave driver obsessed with profits
from a holiday season raped by the money
changers? "
I make all of my gifts for my families. I have
been making my own holiday gifts for the past
six years. For those of you curious to see the
kinds of gifts that I make (and the kinds of
gifts that any of you out there can make), go
to www.clearplastic.com or www.allyn.com.
Cleara
You grew up below the poverty line? Now THAT'S street cred!
I don't even have to defend Micheal Moore. Your liars are in control of your party and when people get another whiff of reality like they got back in April, you're going to find out who's out of touch.
History will remember your demagogues' designs on gays the same way it remembers segregation. Bigotry has always lost in America given enough time. It's because most Americans are fair, smart people at heart -- eventually, they will see the right wing for what it's become and they will run them out of town on a post. Martin Luther King Jr. was not mainstream in his time, but he is remembered as a hero. George W Bush will not be.
And that's all I have to say about that.
...I think I can get cheaper drummers on craigslist.
Ok, try to get past Manhattan without a toll from a bridge, needed to cross the waters.
The whole point of my post was that sometimes driving even as far as the next state can cost alot of money in tolls alone, as much money as shipping something from Greece. I was wrong about the tolls, it cost more than I remembered. It cost $14, my mother recently went to Queens from New Jersey. To pay tolls to drive to Queens almost costs as much as shipping 4 books from Greece, with the price of gas it equated in, the price is definitely more for driving to Queens in New York, as compared to shipping from this Greek bookstore.
No kidding. I bought an effects pedal on sale for $35 US (originally $125 US) and had it shipped here to Canada. Unfortunately the "value" on the package was marked "$125 USD" instead of the sale price, so I got dinged about $30 CAD on duty fees. Doh.
To make things worse, the product was defective and I had to send it back. Fortunately the company I bought it from had a really good warranty policy and I had shipping free both ways on my repair. Unfortunately when it crossed the border on the way back, I got dinged $30 duty AGAIN even though you're not supposed to.
I was going to appeal the fees but after seeing the complexity of the procedure and the inordinate number of forms I'd need to fill, I just cut my losses.
I try to avoid ordering stuff from the US ever since...
Perverted Mayor Quimby (thumb out pointing at audience at podium): "... theeere will beeee 8 maids a milkinnng"
Homer Simpson: "mmmmmmm milk...."
my blog
Amazon.co.uk has the 20Gb 4th Gen iPod for 207 pounds (which, even at the really wonderful/poor exchange rate of $1.90/£1 is under 400 dollars)
Personal imports from the US of items like iPods attract a customs duty of around 5%, a VAT of 17.5%, a handling charge of between five and ten pounds, a shipping cost and (optionally) an insurance cost. Usually you're looking at around 30% on top of the US price. And for many items you will not qualify for local technical support so if it arrives DOA, then you have to ship it back to the US for repairs/replacement.
So to make it worthwhile for me to buy an iPod from the US, I either have to be travelling and carry it with me (and "forget" to declare it on return, which is illegal of course), or the US price has to be significantly under 300 dollars (and it's currently 294 dollars on amazon.com).
So, for personal import, the UK and US prices on iPods are pretty much the same for me in the UK.
Some people try to "stick it to you on shipping", because that "shipping and handling" charge is mostly their profit margin.
... itemized charges, of course!
I've purchased only 1 thing online, via eBay. They tacked on a mandatory $1 insurance charge, but then the package arrived, there was no insurance mark at all. I checked with the post office -- that package was not insured. This was because that $1 "insurance" charge was actually part of their profit margin.
Using the nickel-and-dime extra charges as support for profits is as old as the hills. And it can happen at any level of the economy. Heck, once the car companies started squeezing their Tier1, 2 and 3 suppliers, the supplier response was
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]