Cheaper to Buy New
I am always amazed to observe how pricing issues tend to work on occasion. I have observed more than a few here on the blog over the last couple of years (most notably those of hotels, airlines, and gas come to mind). I am finding some other interesting pricing structures that do not always makes sense seemingly everyday though actually a couple that I am going to share here actually do make sense for a change.
First is the oddity of price incentives and deep discounting has made 2009 the year to get into a new car. This is largely due to the economic slowdown that the car makers got behind on slowing down and there is still a huge glut of cars on the market that are just not moving. Combine those pricing deals with especially low financing (when one can come by it of course) and possible tax break incentives and it is actually cheaper in a lot of case to buy a new model car then to buy the same car from last year or even the 2007 model year. Seems completely upside down and if not the first time this has ever happened, it is certainly the first time in the last thirty-nine years. Combine all of that in more than once case with cheaper operating cost and even slightly better treatment to the environment and how can you go wrong?
Up next is the odd case of my new laptop, ordered just yesterday. This is indeed a company laptop and while I did not go top of the line, it does have a few nice hardware features only fitting to my needs as director of information technology. Happy to say the cost on the exact same model as I had ordered six months ago had dropped roughly $200, which was a happy thought. However, as I think to have noted here at some point – while the 15.4″ screen was nice, the slight extra bulk and weight seemed to be less than worth the benefit to me. Given that I priced the same model in a slight smaller 14.1″ screen, still in the wide format. At this difference I doubt the components have much need to the shrink to fit, which would not be the case going much smaller. If such shrinkage were required, there is a possible expectation of a slightly higher cost. Identical in all but the sound card and batter drain (expected with the slight larger screen), the 14.1″ is prices at $200 over the 15.4″ system. Can someone please help me make sense of that?
Lastly I will mention the CD of music versus the download of the MP3. As I have noted elsewhere, I have been reluctant to pursue that, but had decided to do it anyway. This was largely to test it out but also because a couple of CD’s I had wanted, when found on eBay were always just slightly higher than the same group of songs purchased as a collective album from various sources. However, when I finally decided Amazon.com – I noticed that used copies of the CD’s there were as low as even $2.40, versus the $9.99 it was going to cost to purchase the MP3′s. Granted, there is still the whole cost to nature with the packaging and production and so forth of the CD’s, but they are used – hence the low pricing I am sure, but it is a legitimate purchase on my part. I do wonder about the shipping materials and I will have to think on that one some more, but bottom line if the price of the album was $4.99 as MP3′s I would have made that leap – but can not see doing it when it is still cheaper to get the media sent to me.
