Been quite disappointed lately with ozbargain. Lately the top deals have all been RRP eg nexus 4 kindle and raspberry pi. No doubt they are good products and good value but bargains they are not.
When did OzBargain become OZRRP?
aussman on 06/02/2013 - 20:42
Comments
In the case of Nexus 4 it was more about letting people know that they were back in stock?
Anyway, perhaps head over to www.HamWhisperersNonFoodBargainsOver5Dollars.com
Must be a Hardly Normal website.
I reckon they are bargains. The RRP is so close to cost price on all those items it's considered a bargain. For Example Nexus 4 is $100 cheaper (excluding delivery) than everywhere else and isn't the raspberry pi made by a not for profit organisation. I believe there is no profit margins on Raspberry Pi. I'm not sure about Kindle but I hear that Amazon are trying to sell their items at cost price and make their profits from the mobile Amazon Store on the Kindle.
But really, I would defiantly consider Nexus 4 a bargain because you can buy it from other places and it's a lot more expensive. I don't agree as much with the Kindle (as Amazon are trying to be the primary seller) and Raspberry Pi, I'm not so sure about. But I guess it is more of a notification like J 1 said.
Hence my point they are good value however by no means a bargain
Judging from the votes they get clearly they are bargains to some. For Nexus 4 it's clearly one of the best value phone and the availability is limited — unless you are willing to spend $500 to buy it from Harvey Norman, which makes Google Play Store offer a "bargain".
And why are we changing our moniker because you think 2 out of hundreds of deals posted over the last couple of weeks are RRP?
Ozbargain is primarily a site to share information….
The information that is shared is generally about getting goods or services at what would be considered good prices.
If a product is released to the market, and is at a great price…. I don't have a problem with it being listed as a bargain. It may be that down the track, it will be seen as not such a great price…. but initially, I think it appropriate that the community is informed…. RRP or not.I think rrp deals should be in the forum. As it just encourages advertising rather than real bargains
What do you mean by advertising?
We were having this same discussion in the moderator forums as way to figure out a blanket guideline for this. The majority of the community seems to think an RRP deal for the Nexus 4 & Rasberry PI are bargains as seen with the votes.
But say if Apple announces a new hardware at a new pricing of $XYZ, and they get posted as a deal. Do we move this to the forum or leave them as a deal (and be prepared to get many, many neg votes and comments)?
So what's the answer?
The guidelines are written and enforced with what works with the majority of the community. The community is evolving, the site is evolving, so the guidelines should also evolve. Welcome to the gray area.
I'm not arguing that nexus 4 is not good value however I think any product at rrp no matter how good the value is is not a bargain by definition.
Eg kogan believes their TVs are equivalent to better brand names at lower price is this a bargain.
Ms surface pro is cheaper than comparable laptops/tablet yet it is not a bargain.The more rrp products you put on the more ingrained it becomes that it is appropriate posting. I think it is a slippery slope as once rrp products are put on reps will start listing their products which are rrp and thus the site becomes more like free advertising for their respective brands.
No. What makes a bargain is not RRP or a sale price. For example
- Nexus 4 on Google Play at RRP of $399 — it's a bargain
- Nexus 4 at Harvey Norman $446 ($50 off their regular price, presumably) — it's still a crap deal
Especially when you consider Google here is setting a reasonable RRP comparing to similar products. At the same time we have shops all advertising "50% off" yet still offering no deal.
What makes a deal is definitely not how much it is discounted from RRP.
As of the worry of merchants listing their products on RRP,
- they still need to declare that they are store representatives
- store reps have posting limits
- bad deals will get voted down, which might subsequently ban the store and the reps
what scotty said. It's rare but somtimes the rrp is a bargain.
No, I dont agree with this.
The RRP is the rrp; the price it SHOULD be sold at. Anything under this would be at least a sort of 'bargain'
Anything over the RRP are just retarded and people who are willing to buy it are simply ignorant.
Thus the nexus 4@rrp is shouldn't be regarded as a bargain.
I agreed with you. Nexus 4 or 7 selling at rrp are not bargain.
The people just voted positive as soon as they saw nexus 4 or 7 for no reason.
Play store rrp may be reasonable then again that rrp price doesn't included GST and shipping is around $20.Please correct me if I am wrong. Play store will always cheaper because they don't pay tax.
Play store will always cheaper because they don't pay tax.
Maybe's what Gerry Harvey wants us to believe :)
I've not bought a device from Play Store before, but for devices they do give a tax invoice with GST. Same with apps from Australian developers.
@ Neil: With your example of Apple announcing new hardware at an awesome price then I don't think that should be posted as a bargain (unless very temporary) Why? Because everyone will already know about it from the media and word of mouth. Where as with the Nexus 4 it was important to let people know that it was back in stock. Just my opinion which is worth less than 1/2 a rupee.
Apple will never release new hardware at an awesome price. ;) I meant it's inital price on release. E.G. iPhone 5 released at x price.
Because everyone will already know about it from the media and word of mouth.
That's a separate issue. Just because you and I know about it doesn't mean everybody does. Take the Qantas/Woolworths deal for example.
fair enough, but I find it hard to believe anyone that is actually interested in Apple products wouldn't know about it. Heck my great grandma would know about it.
Maybe a 'bargain' should be better than 'any' RRP?
Encourage more retailers to match prices?
Do I know what I'm talking about? :)
As it just encourages advertising
Don't you think that every single rep post on ozbargain is advertising?
Why else would reps post?yep, it's not necessarily a bad thing
Vote with your mouse
END OF STORY
Yeah the HN surface tablet 100 off deal you just posted aint a bargain by your reasoning
The Nexus 4 from Google Play Store I consider a deal worthy of posting, but aussman does have a point. Mention anything Android around here and it will generally get higher votes regardless of value when compared to the next product. Apple has their fanbois, what is the equivalent term when talking Android?
One thing that I find detrimental to the community is when certain websites/companies continually post 'deals' for their products which aren't actually that great, yet get voted to the front page anyway. Some that spring to mind are Frank and Beans underwear, Geronimo jerky and Mannabeans.
Essentially they're just using the site as a form of advertising which I think is against the spirit of the community.
What a relevant username!
If people vote the deals to the front page then it seems the community wants these deals. If rep posted deals get continual low vote counts, we ban them from the site (We ban 1 or 2 a week). One man's junk is another man treasure.
If you don't want to see a specific store or user's post, you can hit the Hide from Listing link at the bottom of their deal.
Best example are the numerous iOS apps voted to the front page that are FREE but only cost 1 or 2 dollars in the first place. What a bargain!!
People see the word FREE and go mental.
Makes me wonder sometimes since Apple iTunes is an Ozbargain affiliate.
OzBargain does not manipulate the votes. Everything that gets to the front page is what the majority of users vote for. People love free apps.
For the record, only links for guests have the affiliate link. iTunes affiliate schemes give 5% of the sale. So 5% of free is nothing. iTunes affiliate ;)
But if the user navigates to the free iTunes app posted on Ozbargain and ends up buying a paid app/mp3 etc by virtue of being lead to the iTunes store from Ozbargain, then I understand commission is paid.
Nothing wrong with that.
Thanks Scotty. I guess I'll just have to hide those damn iOS app posts that seem to pop up every second post. I still can't understand why people who spend hundreds of dollars on an iPhone or iPad think that saving 99 cents on an app is a bargain.
RRP can be a bargain. Its a matter of whether the price is good compared to other similar products. A manufacturer can produce a good deal, just like a retailer can.
For me it comes down to the definition of bargain. For me a bargain is something with great value, and sometimes RRP is great value. The Nexus 4 is a great example of this, I'd rather read about a $400 Nexus 4 than an iPhone 5 which is $50 off RRP.
Agree. A bargain is about value, not RRP. For the Nexus 4 example quoted above, the RRP was value relative to the usual market price for these things (e.g. S3 at $100+ more). Once the market expectation is redefined by the Nexus 4 price, that same deal posted a couple of months later might not be a bargain.
Otherwise, the way to get products as bargains is to put in crap RRPs and discount them heavily. Happens for say, Scanpan - no one has ever bought a Scanpan at RRP. But is 50% off RRP a good deal relative to the market expectation for these things? Arguably not.
Put it this way, if we posted everything that claimed to be a deal on OZB then Coles would be all over the front page.
You expectations are too high. Soon we will be trying to discover retailers' actual cost prices and asking for their CPs plus a negotiable minimum markup that they are willing to accept.
Some commodities never budge from RRP because they are priced accordingly and sell extremely well at this price point. Who are you to judge whether it is a bargain or not?
Generally RRPs are way overinflated and I see your point, but this is not always the case.
You can't base anything on an RRP, coz its not a standardised accurate measure of the value of a product. Half the RRP's are set based on the companies agenda and profit expectations, not on what the value of the product actually is. So when a low RRP is set on say the nexus, then people get confused because they thinks its not a bargain, when it really is still good value at that price.
The point is you cant place any merit on an RRP because what is it based on? Who comes up with it?
A bargain is a bargain, and is worthy of ozbargain, if its a better deal than can be obtained elsewhere, regardless of RRP. In my opinion.
I think the concept of the bargain in this case (Nexus 4) is that the prevailing market prices were ridiculous. Hence when it is in-stock on Google Play, then on a relative basis it is a good thing.
If the phones sell out in next to no time, then clearly the market considers it a bargain.
Though it's a slippery slope - do we then say that every iProduct is a bargain because they sell out too?
I think the distinction here is not that it is a popular product, there also appears to be negligible profit margin when compared to equivalent products. If a product is a loss-leader at RRP then consumers are getting a good deal (for a while anyway). The difference with milk at the supermarkets is that milk is available every day at their loss leading prices - so we don't need to post it to OzBargain.
The best mechanism to determine if it is appropriate is whether people vote for the deal, or complain. I think it going to be hard to frame specific rules about what is allowed to be posted.
I wonder how many of these Nexus manufacturers (eg. HTC, Samsung, LG) have been screwed by Google over the years.
I bet the actual Google phone/tablet manufacturers are losing big bucks on the deal with Google but stick with it because they want to be associated with Google and HOPE they may recoupe their costs later on through increased exposure and sales of their other devices.
You'll find HTC Nexus One, Samsung Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy Nexus all came out at much higher RRP ($600-$700). Nexus 7 is the first Nexus device that competes aggressively on price and so is Nexus 4. And even then both Asus and LG are said to make tiny profit from those devices.
I don't disagree that those devices might be deliberately crippled to lure the consumers to their other products. For example - lack of Micro SD card expansion and no HDMI out in the case of Nexus 7.
You'll find HTC Nexus One, Samsung Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy Nexus all came out at much higher RRP ($600-$700).
That's true, but the prices tended to drop quicker over a relatively small amount of time compared to other phone models and in reality the phones didn't sell that close to RRP. There was even a post on OzBargain for the Galaxy Nexus priced at about $348.00—I think from a chinese shop in Sydney (obviously grey imports).
And even then both Asus and LG are said to make tiny profit from those devices.
Do you mean tiny or tidy?
Definitely tiny for Nexus 4/7 — comparing to their regular models. Well, it might be tidy profit that's sizeable enough for them to do it in the first place.
However as you've said, the price of original Nexus dropped quickly to their realistic level, so that might be how much margin they are getting in the first place. With Nexus 4 & 7, LG and Asus might have decided to set the price at the realistic level in the first place, and I don't think there will be much room to drop. Definitely not 50% off in 6 months.
Back on topic
Of course if you like the nexus and want to pay rrp then in some sense its a bargain. ie its value for money for you.
Then again if RRP is to be classified as a bargain, then at no stage could anyone declare any post as not a bargain, unless they could point to a cheaper price, that is available to all. i.e include shipping or stores that are available to those in the far regions of the country, and then those who like seeing the product before they pick up, or even those who see getting 317 days free interest etc etc.
And how many of these bargains will hide other bargains that do really stand out. In essence, that what the forums where supposed to do. But forum posts are considered as a penalty post.
Then this was really a post like the sheep that many here declare of those who who stand in line for hours & days for their bargains like free coffee and a newspaper image before having the pleasure of paying RRP for their device. But of course only those without robot eyes might see that. :)
It is totally up to the site owner who sees that this is a bargain as already indicated.
The real issue here was, that this "bargain" was stickied when it came back in stock. Which really was over the top.
The real issue here was, that this "bargain" was stickied when it came back in stock. Which really was over the top.
We did that when there was a flood of Nexus 4 posting when it came back to stock. We sticky it back temporarily as a way to stop people from posting the same thing again and again. We did not stick long though. I think we ended up banning Google Play Store for a while, and now a warning message is displayed when you attempt to post Google Play Store deals.
Fair comment, and that makes some sense.
Maybe those setting RRP are getting better? Surely that is only a good thing?