7 Ways to Pay the Cheapest Price for Tech Stuff

Okay, this is a follow on from my previous post about the best time to buy new technology. Just following the advice from that post will save you a bunch of money but, as promised, here are my tips for getting the best price when it is time to buy:

1/ Shop around. Most tech stuff is the same product in the same box - retailers don’t have much they can differentiate on except price so take advantage of that and shop around. You’ll be surprised how much prices can vary.

2/ Shop online. Some products lend themselves to online purchases and some you really want to go somewhere you can see and touch it first and maybe talk to a salesperson about it first. If what you’re after is in the former category rather than the latter then you could save a bunch by shopping online. Retailers with only an online shopfront have much lower overheads than those with a ‘brick and mortar’ shopfront and they can pass these savings on to their customers. Use websites like Shopbot.com to help you quickly and easily find the cheapest price amongst their listed online retailers.

3/ Check Ebay. Most people know you can buy cheap second hand goods on ebay but you can also get new items for a lot less than you’d pay for in a shop - especially tech stuff. Some Ebay sellers will arrange for goods to be sent directly to you from overseas where they sell for much less and often you can find compatible 3rd party products that sell for much less than their genuine counterparts. For example, I bought a remote release cable for my DSLR the other day from ebay and it cost about $20. Guess how much Sony charge for their genuine cable - $99!!!Yep, $99 for a piece of wire with a button on the end.

4/ Clearance Models. This especially applies to hardware like computers. Buying equipment just after a new model has been released can often mean you get a big discount just because the retailer needs to move their old stock to make way for the new range. Often you only have to wait weeks to a couple of months before a model is significantly discounted so it’s not like you’re buying ‘old’ equipment.

5/ Negotiate. Everything is negotiable and it never hurts to try. Sometimes the seller won’t budge on price but you’ll be surprised how many times you’ll get a discount because you asked. Of course, negotiation is a skill and it’s beyond the scope of this post to go into it in depth (maybe another time) but it’s a skill that can be learned and if you just take the first step and start to ask for a better price you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

6/ Leverage Competition. It may not always be convenient or desirable for you to buy from the cheapest seller you’ve found but other sellers don’t know that. Approach the seller you want to buy from and ask them if they’ll beat (or at least match) the lower price.

7/ Buy from Salespeople on Commission. Why? Because salespeople on commission are real sales people - they will actually want the sale as opposed to ‘order takers’ on a fixed wage who don’t care whether they make the sale or not ‘cos their paypacket is the same either way. A salesperson on commission is more likely to either discount or throw freebies into the deal to entice you to purchase from them and not someone else. They know that something is better than nothing and you can use that in your favour.

Put as many of the above tips to work for you as possible for your purchase and you’ll save $$$.