Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
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Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#2> It's tempting to jump on sales that are presented as steals. But when it comes to online shopping, you can't trust every sale price (or review, or seller) you see.
Surely this isn't limited to online shopping. In the days of yore, when I sold PCs at Circuit City, my store would put together package deals where you bought a PC, monitor, printer, etc. The prices for the package deals were the same as if you bought everything together, but we'd put it all on one tag, at a single price, and also show the total you could get in mail-in rebates from the whole package. Because it was advertised as a package, people assumed it was cheaper, oftentimes.
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#3The classic mark it up and big discount trick
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#4Dell has always sold expensive goods in my experience. They've never been my first choice when being thrifty.
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#5This is pathetic, but their U/UP line of monitors is really good. In fact I'm using them for the last 10 years or so. Back in the day, Dell was one of very few manufacturers who offered monitors with 16:10 screens, which are are far better at 24" size than 16:9. (The difference is not that noticeable with 27"+ screens and bigger)
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#6Dell has always sold expensive goods in my experience. They've never been my first choice when being thrifty.
That's a different issue.
If we assume honest dealing, when you see a $1000 display going for $500, you would think you get a high-end product at a mid-range price. You may then inquire why it's on sale - is it used, is it older generation, does the shop need shelf space? Who knows.
What should not be happening is that a product that has never sold for $1000 is presented as being worth $1000.
If you want free market to work, then deceit needs to be punished really harshly.
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#7Dell has always sold expensive goods in my experience. They've never been my first choice when being thrifty.
That's a different issue. If we assume honest dealing, when you see a $1000 display going for $500, you would think you get a high-end product at a mid-range price. You may then inquire why it's on sale - is it used, is it older generation, does the shop need shelf space? Who knows. What should not be happening is that a product that has never sold for $1000 is presented as being worth $1000. If you want free market…
if you want the free market to work, consumers can’t use price to evaluate quality
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#8Dell has always sold expensive goods in my experience. They've never been my first choice when being thrifty.
I disagree. When I was a kid I always bought Dell for my desktop computers because you could get the same specs for $300-$400 less than other providers (HP, Compaq, etc). My Mom would give me a $600 budget and I would do hours of research finding the most power I could get for my money. Dell pretty much always came out on top.
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#9> In some cases, consumers paid more for the add-on monitor advertised as "discounted" than they would have paid if they had bought it as a stand-alone product
That's insane. Reminds me of LTT's secret shopper incident where they rejected Dell's suggested extra warranty package and then Dell included two mutually exclusive warranty packages that you cannot even intentionally select simultaneously on their website.
Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted
#10Dell has always sold expensive goods in my experience. They've never been my first choice when being thrifty.
I disagree. When I was a kid I always bought Dell for my desktop computers because you could get the same specs for $300-$400 less than other providers (HP, Compaq, etc). My Mom would give me a $600 budget and I would do hours of research finding the most power I could get for my money. Dell pretty much always came out on top.
+1 on this. For a while Dell had a nice sweet spot. It was cheaper than the aforementioned brands, roughly equal price wise to the likes of Gateway but much more configurable and better customer service, and only a bit more expensive than unknown to me brands back than found in computer shopper. Only way to do better in same budget was to build your own