Sony Cybershot T50 Camera for £234.70 with Free Delivery - Nuts! -Knowing When to Buy

Spadge_3

I've posted a link to this camera site last time too, but I feel it deserves one last mention. I've been studying the prices of online merchants selling common mainstream electronic products such as digital cameras and mobile phones, and I am seeing a familiar pattern of pricedrops which leads me to conclude that if you time it properly you can save extra money.

When a new product is released the prices are always high, very high and close to the full RRP.. but eventually one shop does an offer and their price comes down and then other shops not wanting to be left out also lower their price or have special promotions.. this can sometimes lead to fierce competition between companies because they each want to be known as the best buy.. and this can drive the price of a product down quite remarkably.

One example of this which I believe deserves some notice is https://www.isolysis.com who seem to be driving down and disrupting the market prices for online camera products.. take the Sony T50 camera which has 7.2 megapixels and a nice 3 inch touchscreen. This camera was released recently and was retailing close to £300. Then this shops been leading the drive down of the market price.. because each time they lower their price the other shops follow, and they again in turn lower their price further. I've seen it happen quite literally everyday or atleast every other day. Isolysis.com is now doing this camera for £234.70 with free special delivery (normally worth about £7ish).. (see http://www.isolysis.com/sony-cyber-shot-dsct50-silver-megapixels-inch-lcd-p-673.html) while other shops are trailing behind trying to keep up with this place's prices.

What I have learned from this observation, and it may seem quite obvious now that I think about it, is that when a new product is released it will have alot of hype and the market price will be high because not all retailers have had a chance to stock it or offer their promotions, but after a couple of weeks or so, maybe a little longer, when the product is a little more well known and more popular, retailers will adjust their prices inline with their competitor companies. So buying a product as soon as it comes out may not always be the best way since it will cost you more in the long run.. if you have the patience and don't mind waiting you should check to see when the prices stabilize after the initial release hype. In my earlier example with the Sony camera, I have seen it happen several times.. first the Sony T9 model was new and it cost around £300, then eventually it came and stabilized around £230. Then the Sony T9 camera was discontinued and a newer Sony T30 camera was released and again starting price was around £300 but eventually stabilized around £225 and then became discontinued only to be replaced with other models such as the Sony T50 which also started at £300 but are now stabilizing around the £235 mark.

So the point is, you can get a better deal if you time your purchase nicely. It applies to certain products and not necessarily everything, but I find it tends to be mainly electronic items, mainstream products (what you might find at argos) and other high value items, such as cars. Cars also lose alot of their value if you compare the showroom price to one on the second hand market that is only a couple of years old.. the price difference always tends to be in the thousands.

The key is to understand the market of the product and how previous similar products have fared from initial release to eventually becoming discontinued by the manufacturer.