The art of competitive pricing
Recently I’ve been acquiring a decent amount of video content, and have been put to task at burning that content onto DVD before watching it on my television. Not only is this process arduous, but I end up using DVDs I could use for other things.
So, I set out on a mission to get myself a cable. A VGA to S-video and/or RCA cable to be exact. Finding one of these cables offline, in retail stores in my area, is not only impossible - but you’ll end up getting some pretty strange looks and responses from the salesman.
“If you find one of those cables, you’ll be the first on the planet to have one.” — Ignorant Circuit City Salesman
I have no problem with people not knowing everything. In fact, I’d rather people be open an honest about what they don’t know. But when I go to most retail stores I’m presented with pompous, “know it all”, jerks that are used to dealing with people who can be fooled into thinking that someone is a genius in their field simply by using words they do not know. Something that has made me ill for quite some time.
“There is absolutely no such thing as a VGA to S-vido or RCA cable. You will need to get a box to do that type of analog to digital conversion, which will run you at least $150 or more. We don’t carry those here.” — A sure of himself Circuit City Salesman
I stared at this guy for a moment or two. Taking my time between blinks to contemplate getting into a debate, challenging his intelligence and asking his boss to refrain from paying him at the end of the week. Then, without a word, I walked away. As we walked away Eliza said something like; “He’s wrong right?”, yeah Eliza he was wrong. Dead wrong. But not in his head, and so I decided to allow that illusion to linger instead of squashing it. Not worth my time.
So, now onto what I originally starting this rant about, competitive pricing. Since trying to find this cable was proving fruitless offline, I decided to do a quick search online for what I needed. Ten seconds later I had 100 results pointing to various cable manufacturer and distributors selling exactly what I needed, at what seemed like rock bottom prices.
See, in a competitive arena with very little profit margin (such as computer cables it appears), the art of competitive pricing is needed for success. If you do a search on Froogle for just about any product, order it by price ascending, and your company does not show up on the first page, you’ve probably not mastered this art yet.
During the fight for being at the bottom of the price list, these companies have come up with ways of making their products appear cheaper than they really are. For instance, some times these companies tell you product costs $2.00 (for instance), when really that price is only available to you if you were to purchase a quantity greater than 50. Another strategy is to charge anyone purchasing a product a hefty handling fee. This handling fee isn’t seen until someone is actually going through the checkout process. Similarly, charging more than the usual shipping cost is also a common tactic to keep the initial product price low.
Suffice to say, I found my cable, paid the average cost plus a little more than I probably should have for shipping. But, for this particular cable, I have little choice - since I can not find it anywhere locally at all.
The next time you’re shopping for something completely based on price, realize that those prices might change dramatically before the entire transaction is complete.
Update 06/13/2006 9:00am: Owen asks for more info about the cable itself. And to my surprise as well it is an amazingly simple solution, yet effective. I ended up getting this VGA TO S-VIDEO OR RCA ADAPTER.
[tags]ecommerce, competitive pricing, vga, s-video, rca[/tags]
April 13th, 2006 at 1:12 am
I went through the same thing trying to find the cable that let me use 2 monitors on my old eMac.
Everyone online wanted me to pay $25+ for the shipping and handling, Apple.com didn’t stock them anymore (something about the eMac not doing so hot), and all the stores that normally sell Apple stuff, well
“It Doesn’t Exist. Can I interest you in an iPod?”.
I finally tracked down one store that had one.
It’s very good advice to watch out for the “hidden” things that heavily affect the total price.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:18 am
Yeah, It’s just about time to give up on physical stores. It’s all about the internet shops found in random places on the net.
I’d rather help myself than be mishelped by someone else
… is mishelped a word?
April 13th, 2006 at 3:38 am
A ‘race for the bottom’ would have to be the worst business to be in, but they seem to have made a living out of it by trying to trick consumers. Hooray.
Meanwhile, look at Monster Cable — they’re selling gold-plated whatevermajigs at ten times the price of ‘normal’ cables, and are making a killing because they can focus on the AV-freak market who demands quality above all else. The scales are different, but I’d sure sooner be selling competitive products than competitively-pricing crappy ones.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:19 am
I was under the same impression as the Circuit City guy, though I woudl have said, “The only way I know to do that for sure is… …and I’ve never heard of a cable alone that would do it, but I’m sure it’s possible someone makes one.”
So, do you have more cable info?
April 13th, 2006 at 8:24 am
I agree, the retail world is a nightmare and it is just so much easier to do things at home. Regarding the hidden cost of shipping…I have seen this lately on eBay. I am shopping for a Mac Mini or a Power Mac G4 and I have seen attractive prices that have a $150 shipping fee attached to it. They must think people are idiots.
April 13th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Chris Clark: sounds amazingly familiar to another company we love huh?
April 13th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Dennis: I can sympathize. I was looking for a car charger for my ipod, and phone, on ebay. Same thing. The chargers were Buy It Now for $1.00. But the shipping price was $10. They did this simply to be at the top of the search results.
April 13th, 2006 at 8:52 am
haha, be sure to take that cable to show the Circuit City idiot next time your in the area. I would.
As far as the Monster Cable thing goes, they’re doing the same thing the Circuit City guy is doing, just to a different market. 3/4 of the reasons to buy their very overpriced merchandise is a load of crap. Any AV freak out there needs to do themselves a favor and watch this video/read this article on making your own cables.
Where price gouging is involved, I’m always cautious because I’ve been bitten too many times by the extra fees at the end. The shitty thing is that all the extras are all “administration” style charges, and those charges always vary in incredible amounts — too bad there isn’t a way to regulate them or at least keep them in a range.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Technically, the Circuit City guys weren’t as far off the mark as you suggest.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT: Study the meanings of all the pins on a VGA connecter. Then compare it to the pins on an S-Video connector.
S-Video signals are not VGA. You can’t turn VGA into S-Video without a converter device (and a power source).
So then, how does your cable actually work? Technically, it doesn’t “work”. The video card does the work.
Some modern video cards support the ability to also drive S-Video signals on their VGA connector. The cable isn’t automagically converting the signals. The video card itself creates the NTSC/PAL signal. What you bought is simply a cable, not a converter.
There are still a lot of video cards (particularly northbridge-integrated video controllers) that do not support this ability. That’s why there is a compatibility disclaimer on the page you linked to (http://www.computercasesandcables.com/ccc/CV-25120).
If you wanted to actually CONVERT VGA to S-Video, you would need a device like this. Notice that this device is much more expensive than the cable you bought.
In your posting, you didn’t specify which department of Circuit City you were in when you inquired about the cable. If you were asking someone working in the Television/Video department of Circuit City, then it is reasonable for him to not know how a PC’s video card works.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Myron: Touché. I realize the way the technology works, but to say it is impossible shows considerable ignorance - and not everyone is blessed with your volumes of knowledge in this area. I don’t expect the guys at Circuit City (even the ones in the computer department since that is who I asked first, then went to the audio/video crew) to know everything there is to know about these types of things, but being willing to say that they don’t know would be nice.
Thanks for commenting though.
November 11th, 2006 at 11:22 am
I just had the exact same experience with one of these ultra-annoying “computer experts” (for $40 we can install that stick of ram for you!). This time I looked him squarely in the eye and told him he was an idiot. Made me feel good. He “escorted” me out of the store blithering and blathering. I laughed at him the whole way.