So, we're right in the middle of an advancing technological age when having a cellular phone is so standard that people look at you funny when you don't have one. I use mine primarily for business, and since my business increasingly happens all around the world I need my cellular phone all the time.
When my ancient Nokia (I think it's almost 4 years old now), began to drop calls, randomly take pictures of my pocket and sound the alarm I was near panic. I don't have much cash to spend on a new phone, and I know the ones that the shops around here offer for free or $99.99 are simply crap. They're flimsy, simple, under featured and look terrible. What's worse, most of them require you to sign up for a long contract, and I don't use my phone enough to spend $40.00+ per month, I spend about $100.00 per year, that's what I can afford really. So what do I do?
I couldn't help conclude; "Well, if the locals aren't willing to charge a reasonable price for a decent phone without any strings attached then I'll ignore them completely." I found a way to import my own unbranded, direct from the manufacturer phone from Hong Kong and saved myself a few hundred dollars. For $68.00 US I had a phone/mp3 player with touch screen, EBook reading capability and there were no strings. Rogers, Telus, Bell and everyone else can stuff their high markups and stringy contracts. Oh, and it's Quad Band, meaning that it will work anywhere in the world.
I needed a laptop to replace my badly aging Toshiba. It works great in one place, sure, but th
e battery is down to having about 35 minutes of charge so I'm always plugged in. There are a couple other problems that keep it from being ready for a coffee shop or a meeting but it makes a good stationary computer when I'm house sitting or visiting somewhere for more than an hour. My solution? Keep the Toshiba, use it when I can plug in and get a netbook for real portability. Future Shop, Best Buy, and Staples were selling a slightly older HP Mini for terrible prices. I wanted the HP because I needed a big keyboard. Ordering through Amazon.ca and other outlets didn't help much on price either, though they did have more recent models. So what did I do?
I called a smaller warehouse web shop that I'd dealt with when building computers for friends for a little extra cash and asked them if they could make me a deal since I'd given them the business. They gave me a fantastic deal on an HP Mini 1035NR. I paid almost half price after using both the cupon codes they provided. Since they're located right in Vancouver I saved the Provincial taxes and their prices were low to start, being importers themselves. I still had a problem though. The extended battery that I wanted was way over my budget.
After surfing EBay for an hour I found a the battery manufacturer in Hong Kong, gave the
m a call and voila; they offered me an industrial class Sanyo battery with 7 hours of life. The version they sold me was half the price of the extended life battery HP sells ($75.00 Canadian versus $149.99), it was the industrial class version that's used for heavy duty applications (mines, manufacturing plants, etc...), and they shipped for free. Again, I leapt past the massive markups, wasn't afraid to do a little research and actually call the companies involved. These people wanted my business and they were happy to provide. Their online listings even had a replacement battery for my Toshiba, which I'm passing on for now since I can't afford it at the moment.
Here's what I'm saying with these examples. If the retailers aren't willing to find a way to earn our business, reduce prices, and be sensitive to the fact that a lot of us have a lot less cash on hand in a real, meaningful way, just go around them. Find out where
they get their products made and cut out the middlemen. It's up to the retailers to
earn our business. Tech vendors, especially cellular phone companies, somehow think we are trapped, that we have to do things their way and pay the prices they set but it's not true. It doesn't stop at importing your own phone and batteries either.
While I was working for a Canadian cellular company I heard from customers who were dropping the service because using cellular plans they'd opted into overseas was actually cheaper than staying with a Canadian provider. Not just a little cheaper, but half the cost, even with roaming. In Canada we're being so badly gouged for some services that the CTRC is getting ready to regulate certain service sectors directly. We stepped into a recession and the average cellular phone plan went up.
People keep saying it's best to keep "going local" but when I see the budget crushing markups they and their suppliers, and their importers apply to what we buy my sympathy dies. Most of these companies aren't even intelligent enough to import the products they sell themselves, so why would I feel badly for them when I'm talking to their supplier's supplier? They should know better. They should be savvier than the average consumer.
RL
Sadly, even with these bargains I've spent my entire electronics budget for the year. At least I got exactly what I needled. Oh, and if you're wondering if the HP Mini was worth it, well, so far I've written over 140,000 words on it and I can say, hell yes!
