Check Before You Buy Electronics From Costco
Posted by Frugal on November 19th, 2007
I’ve compared the prices on electronics many times. Costco quite often disappoints me. I really expect better pricing from Costco.
Here are some examples:
1. JVC GZ-MG155US HDD 30GB camcorder at my local Costco is selling for $489.99, but the cheapest price from the internet is $329. That is $170 price difference, or some 35% of the total.
2. Sony DCR-SR82 HDD 60GB camcorder at my local Costco is selling for $599.99, but the cheapest price from the internet is $295. That is about $300 price difference, or some 50% of the total.
This is not to mention all those SD memory cards, DVD-R/+R media which are constantly over-priced by a tremendous amount. It’s really hard to imagine who are buying those over-priced products, but I guess there are simply people with more money or less time to price-shop than I do.
Certainly Costco has a very good return policy. But for such a steep price difference, I really need to think twice. There is probably a very good reason why the stock price of Costco is near its all time high at $66.80. Don’t you think that it could be due to all the shoppers paying for Costco’s bottomline?
Most people probably expect a deal when walking into Costco. I’m afraid that maybe the reverse is true.
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November 19th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I agree that you should expect a deal at Costco. However, I would caution you to avoid simply looking at the cheapest price on the internet and assuming that’s what you would be able to buy the product for.
My reason for this is the last time I purchased a digital camera I was able to find some amazingly cheap prices on the internet. I did some research into these merchants and it turns out that some of the deeply discounted prices are scams. They lure you in with the price, but supposedly when you call they won’t sell you the product for that price. If you want that price you have to buy a bunch of accessories at a huge markup thereby canceling out the discount.
After reading stories of this kind of deception, I decided that my best bet would be to stick with companies I know online (i.e. newegg). Hopefully I will still pay less than a physical store, but avoid any hassle with scammers.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:13 am
DUH!!!! Come on Frugal where is your mind? If Costco is making profits month after month then somebody is being the sucker, no? Somebody is overpaying, no?
This is why I am very skeptical and watchful of companies that make record profits….
November 19th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Be aware that Costco often doesn’t sell the item as is – they are almost always bundled with extra things. For example you can’t buy a plain Nintendo DS – you can only get them with a game (but at least they are good games). My last digital camera from them came with a carrying case (sold for $15 by Amazon).
As to whether they mark things up to boost profit margins, consider one of their rules:
So subtract 14%, and then wonder how others are able to sell below Costco’s cost. (Pedantically speaking the math is that you divide by 1.14 to get the original cost.)
November 19th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
A giant reason people used to have to buy electronics was the unlimited return policy. Imagine being able to return your 6 year old laptop for a full refund today. Just turn around and buy a new laptop with the refunded money. Naturally, that led to abuse and the eventual elimination of the policy for electronics.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Electronics, Jewlry, and furniture always have an extremely high markup. Alwayd shop around when it comes to these things