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An Example: HDD Price Development Before Black Friday (Single Sample/ Product Only)
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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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Amazon sales and prime day and Black Friday are all totally bogus except for a few specific loss leader deals. Everything else is on sale based on marked up prices
Just picked up a WD Easystore 18TB external from Best Buy yesterday for $199. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-18tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6427995.p?skuId=6427995
The Amazon.de "Black Friday Week" price of the tracked disk is 306.99 EUR. So basically back to the price of 2 month ago before the extreme price hike. No "deal", just people who had to buy during the last 2 months go to pay a lot extra on top of it.
Dunno how the "Easystores" match of with the "Elements" or what the exact difference is, but 199 USD at least sounds like a deal. :)
I highly recommend the Keepa extension on chrome or the like (camel camel camel, etc.)
Here is their chart for the last year (US pricing) - https://i.imgur.com/pKoSanC.png
I love Keepa
Keepa is a keeper
Wonder what caused the spike in March.
That's the "actual price". It's been on "sale" for 95% of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if they legally have to sell it at it's actual price at least some of the time.
Wouldn't they lose money by always having it include a discount?
No, the scare quotes are there for a reason. They've determined that the most profitable price point is at $300, but they want to advertise "50% off!" without actually lowering the price, so they raise the price to some ridiculous number for as short as legally possible, then claim that it's the "real" price and say that $300 is discounted.
It's just lying, and it's illegal in many jurisdictions. For example, Dell recently got fined $10,000,000 in Australia for advertising "was $x, now $y" discounts when $x was not the price for the majority of the product's recent availability.
Someone said "oh crap my HDD crashed I got purchase a new drive yesterday" and paid whatever they were charged and just accepted it.
Thanks for the recommendation, mate. I didn't know it was a thing, really appreciate it.
Even if it grows, if you found a good deal on Black Friday you just get it because the price is good nothing else.
Love how many things do this especially on Amazon. Stores have been doing it for years.
My gf falls for it a lot. I remind her it's not the crazy deal she thinks it is. No, it's not 50% off. It's only 7 dollars cheaper than it's average selling price over the last couple months.
No, it's not 50% off. It's only 7 dollars cheaper than ~~it's average selling price over the last couple months.~~ the marked up price, which is still overall more expensive than it was 2 months ago, and more expensive than it will be in 2 months from now when the "deal" has finished.
FTFY.
Pump and dump!
I've been looking at drives on ServerPartDeals the past few months, bought a few the past few months, and noticing a similar trend. Got 1 18TB recertified for $165, then a month later got two for $175, now they're up to $199.
I got my exos 2x18 for 180, it's 280 now.
They probably have a price bot/algorithm that tracks prices elsewhere and adjusts their prices to trend the same.
They are raising it so they can drop it back to normal for BF sale.
And raise it back to the increased price after BF. BF is a blessing for businesses.
In my experience the actual sales are in January to mid-February.
Sometimes there are random decent 'sales' around black Friday/cyber Monday. Those are usually targeted towards people shopping for Christmas presents, so there's really only a few good deals.
Then the prices skyrocket for Christmas because everyone that waited until last minute to get Christmas presents will be price gouged.
Finally, in January - mid-February, they actually get rid of old stock. This is a great time to buy things where there's a newer model, usually things like laptops and RAM kits.
Main difference these days IMO is that you just don't buy stuff around Christmas online unless you need it, especially technology stuff. They price gouge it like gas in the summer.
Guess I should expect it have hold out a 18-20TB upgrade for black friday
About right - I have been tracking potentially moving from 12TB and 14TB disks to 18TB or 20TB.
Been watching the Exos X18's on Amazon and they have gone from around £225 to £260 and now today at £272, I expect a "drop" to maybe £240 by the end of the week...