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Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

arstechnica.com

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Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#61

Post by salad-tycoon »

Miserlou57 wrote: post #47
Pxtl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to use CamelCamelCamel to find out if I'm getting an actual deal on something, at least when shopping online.

I’d also recommend JungleDealsBlog

Slickdeals.net also good. Owned, iirc, by some bank though. Comments seem genuine and let you know if it’s a real deal or shill post.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#62

Post by tpxl »

Makhini wrote: post #37
HumblyTossed wrote: post #33

If I am buying anything, on sale or otherwise, I do my best to look up historical prices. It's gotten to be a pain in the ass to be a consumer. I feel like we used to have consumer protections, but not any more.

That's why the UE law that requires the shops to display the lowest price over last 30 days is pretty useful

Eu directive 2019/2161, which regulates this, was supposed to be in effect since 28.5.2022, but I see nothing on local retailers webpages, nor in physical stores ):

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#63

Post by netrus »

RulerOf wrote: post #55
bibanez wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to a store where they put the price per kilo, even when it is discounted. This way, I only need to compare price per kilo with other products to see if it's worth it!

This was really frustrating when I had to be price sensitive shopping for paper towels. They'd list price per roll in the corner of the tag, but every package's rolls were significantly different cm^2 quantities.

It's a hard problem. Some stores have half-size paper towels, which I prefer, as paper towels are unnecessary large most of the time. So I want to price-compare based on number of sheets, not cm² ;)

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#64

Post by bunga-bunga »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #29

Dells online store is a nightmare of dark patterns. Everything on there is 2-3x as expensive as it should be, except it’s always on a huge sale that is changing all the time It’s too much, I can’t shop there

Sounds like hotel bookings. So many “hurry up, 246 people booked this exact room in the past 14 seconds”

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#65

Post by tpxl »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #59
Makhini wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the UE law that requires the shops to display the lowest price over last 30 days is pretty useful

Seems easy to game by just pretending you're selling a different product every time you change the price. I worked at a company that did this with digital goods.

That might work with complex electronics, but it sure as shit wont work with most groceries.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#66

Post by emdashcomma »

andromeduck wrote: post #58
barbariangrunge wrote: post #29

Dells online store is a nightmare of dark patterns. Everything on there is 2-3x as expensive as it should be, except it’s always on a huge sale that is changing all the time It’s too much, I can’t shop there

Think Lenovo does the same.

And for some reason some tech journalists don't account for it. "Ah, but this Thinkpad has an MSRP of $4,395, so it's much more expensive than the competition" when approximately nobody would purchase it for that price, and the consistently-on-sale price would be right in line with competitors.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#67

Post by sanitycheck »

bibanez wrote: post #48
jerf wrote: post #16

I just straight-up ignore "sale" claims now, unless I have personal experience that says this really is a sale. This is mostly limited to groceries where I definitely know that the $4 bag of chips really is on sale at $1.50. Along with all the active deception, I also just count all the times I've gone price shopping for non-trivial things and the prices I see and how festooned with the word "sale" the page is is sim…

I go to a store where they put the price per kilo, even when it is discounted. This way, I only need to compare price per kilo with other products to see if it's worth it!

Sometimes (at least in the UK) that number is wrong, possibly intentionally. The only really sure way is to do the calculation yourself. Unless the weight is wrong too.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#68

Post by tfandango »

jerf wrote: post #16

I just straight-up ignore "sale" claims now, unless I have personal experience that says this really is a sale. This is mostly limited to groceries where I definitely know that the $4 bag of chips really is on sale at $1.50. Along with all the active deception, I also just count all the times I've gone price shopping for non-trivial things and the prices I see and how festooned with the word "sale" the page is is sim…

I have been truck shopping lately which means I'm constantly hounded all day long by every dealership in the 4 state region. Last weekend they ALL had "Memorial Day Sales"! So I asked them all about the sale details... Every single one said if I came in they would try to make a deal with me. That's the same thing as no sale. Actually, it is worse for cars where a sale might entail negotiating against a dealer markup.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#69

Post by dcow »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #31
jerf wrote: post #16

I just straight-up ignore "sale" claims now, unless I have personal experience that says this really is a sale. This is mostly limited to groceries where I definitely know that the $4 bag of chips really is on sale at $1.50. Along with all the active deception, I also just count all the times I've gone price shopping for non-trivial things and the prices I see and how festooned with the word "sale" the page is is sim…

Costco is pretty good about their sale prices being lower than most times.

Came here to say this. At this point I consider it part of Costco’s brand that I can trust I’m getting close to the lowest possible price for a product when I buy from them. Sure Costco still has it’s own deals and sales pop up on a cadence (for example, never buy tires off-sale because they run the tire sale basically ever 6 weeks, the Traeger event happens something like quarterly, etc.), but overall they’re trustworthy. It’s a huge part of the buying experience with Costco and it generates loyalty over time.

Re: Dell in hot water for making shoppers think overpriced monitors were discounted

#70

Post by leetrout »

Lenovo has entered the chat.

This is everything in the Lenovo online store. I signed up for a business account and called a rep on the phone and got a quote for a single machine and the rep gave me a discount of 15% and then when I went on the website the exact same machine was 35% off (and is perpetually on sale for that discounted amount).

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