The Next Extreme Sport: Shopping
Like many men I hate shopping. That high-pitched whine you hear outside your window on Saturday afternoon might just be us passing by as I’m dragged whining to the mall by the Wife.
But strangely enough I enjoy shopping online. In fact I enjoy buying anything online including the same stuff I buy at department stores and shopping malls. The difference between the two experiences is that one is a chore, the other is a sport.
And like snowboarding, skateboarding and parachuting it’s an extreme sport called “Extreme Online Shopping” by those who partake in it. While not as physically demanding as most sports, it does take practice, concentration and skill developed over a long period of time.
The goal of extreme online shopping is to buy what you need while paying as little as possible using the resources available on the Internet. You start by visiting a website such as Fatwallet.com.
Fatwallet.com is an information clearinghouse for extreme shoppers. Here you will find the latest deals on everything from detergent to digital cameras and the strategies involved in getting the best deal. These strategies include using “pricematching” (where stores promise to match the price of an item sold at a competitor), rebates, coupon codes, and other tactics to score the best deal possible. With the proper strategy, people have been known to nab items FAR – “Free After Rebate” – or even better, make money on the purchase of the item. Of course YMMV – “Your Mileage May Vary” – meaning that some store managers or phone customer service reps may not agree to the strategy and thereby kill your deal.
Take for example the recent sale on a Samsung laser printer. An office supply store listed the printer at $129.99 with an $80 rebate, bringing the price down to $49.99 plus tax. While $50 for a laser printer may strike many as a pretty hot deal, most extreme shoppers viewed it as lukewarm at best.
Some shoppers noticed that a competitor had the same model printer on sale at $79 without a rebate. They took the store ad to the office supply store and demanded the store match the competitor’s price. While many store managers refused to pricematch the item (the YMMV part of the deal), others did – matching the difference by the stated policy of 110%. After the pricematch and rebate, the extreme shoppers got a laser printer for the price of sales tax with $8 left over. That made it a pretty toasty deal.
As you would expect, extreme shopping is bad for business. In a 2004 Wall Street Journal article Brad Anderson, chief executive officer of Best Buy Co, labeled such extreme shoppers as “devils” and developed strategies to discourage such shoppers from shopping at BestBuy. Other stores have tightened up their pricematching policies, for example including rebates in their calculations or refusing to pricematch stores that they do not consider direct competitors.
In the example of the laser printer, the office supply store’s corporate office began to reject the rebates of those who successfully pricematched at the stores. While some had received confirmation that their rebates were accepted, it was unclear whether everyone who jumped on the deal would receive the rebate. To make matters more confusing, an advanced copy of a BestBuy’s 7/31/06 – 8/5/06 ad circulated showing that the price of the printer would be $59. Since this was after the rebate had expired but within the 14 day low price guarantee of the office supply chain, extreme shoppers then figured out a new approach. The potential payoff? A free laser printer plus $27 before tax. But as a poster on the site pointed out, this was a “big YMMV” and it wasn’t clear how successful this plan would ultimately be.
For many that mileage has already run out. Some extreme shoppers have stopped publicizing their finds or strategies to prevent others from abusing them. Divisions have appeared between those who enjoy the hunt for a good bargain, and small merchants who use this knowledge to buy as much of an item as they can in order to sell it for a profit, usually on eBay. As one FatWallet poster, “rctay”, complained “(Fatwallet) is a victim of its success. Unless you happen on a deal in the first few minutes it will probably be dead…There are so many resellers grabbing large volumes also. The sellers are adapting to bargain sites also…”
In the end the merchants must in order to survive, and extreme shopping will go the way of hunting bison and shooting passenger pigeons from trains. But in the meantime a bit of extreme shopping may be just what your pocketbook – and your mind – needs to beat the summer heat.
M. janelle:
Oh my gosh Scott, I never knew this and I am on such a limited budget. I need to buy a much smaller desk since I am moving and since I have a credenza in burgundy with the mathching desk, I can now look and learn.
I really do not need the desk drawer and the topper with slits. I watched the video with Val and thought. Now that is nice and clean, how can I do that.
If you have any suggestions would you e-mail me?
Thanks for the great info!
Blessings,
9 August 2006, 5:41 am