http://starbulletin.com/2005/04/02/business/index.html
Rebates going way of the dodo?

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. » Retailers' love affair with mail-in rebates may
be coming to an end.

In response to customer complaints, Best Buy Co., the world's largest
electronics retailer, promised yesterday to eliminate mail-in rebates
within two years. Best Buy's rivals, including Circuit City Stores and
CompUSA, are expected to follow suit.

"Our customers are telling us they just hate the process," said Ron
Boire, executive vice president and general merchandise manager at
Best Buy.

But it wasn't immediately clear yesterday whether the Richfield,
Minn., company would pass on the eliminated rebates in the form of
lower prices, though several industry watchers said they expect the
company to do so.

Mail-in rebates exploded onto the retail scene in the 1990s as a way
for retailers to stimulate sales without lowering their sticker
prices.

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 02:15:47 GMT, Andy <1@2.3> wrote:

Yeah everyone always complains about rebates and there were some
stories about lawsuits or the attorney gen coming down on Office Depot
and Compusa for some rebates that consumers complained about.

However, without them you arent going to see the low prices weve been
getting. People forget but prices stunk real bad in the early 90s. It
was like a sellers mkt. 

Even until the mid 90s when the clones seriously started taking over
the prices were better than before but youd go to the computer fair
and maybe get 10-15%  off the gross out avg retail price.

The only way you get get 30-50% let alone 80% or even FREE after
rebate is with rebates obviously. They depend on maybe the float and
people forgetting to send them in. With most things selling at thin
profit margins theres no way you are going to see big discounts w/o
rebates. People who think they can pay the rebates back in a few days
with 6 months to send them in or no rebates and 80% off are dreaming.

If I had to pay 80-150 bucks for hard disks let alone higher prices  ,
$80 for a 512 stick of mem on sale and $500 for a LCD --- I wouldnt
hardly buy anything compared to what I do spend. I think I spend about
$500-800 a month many times on crud , stuff I may sort of want because
rebates. I get about 50-80% of that back , sometimes 90%.   If  there
were no rebates a  big hardware purchase would be few and far between
and Id hardly ever buy anything for friends and relative just for the
hell of it and Id shift my spending to other things. 

You can see it by checking the compusa and other retail hard disk
prices.  They sell for outrageous prices and then check the low cost
online retailers who hardly ever give rebates for HDs about the lowest
price these lowest cost sellers sell for is around $80-90 for smaller
disks.  You never see a 30-40 buck deal or even a 60-70 deal for a
decent size.  And then factor in the influence that rebate sellers
have on the online sellers too --- they have to lower prices lower to
compete against the retailers who offer $40-60 HDs with rebates.

I bought a a 60 gig at Depot for $10 last year, a 160 gig seagate for
$39 , 200 gig WD for $59 , same for a maxtor.  I would have had to
spend at least $100 or more for the 200 giggers probably meaning they
would have seemed like fairly big deal purchases which I would have
rarely made.   Most would then demand very high quality/reliability
and service and I probably would keep one PC and keep it for a while.
And the high end games mkt would also would impacted as many of the
hardware freaks are also deal freaks and the hundreds of extra bucks
spent on HDs , mem etc would take away the $300-400 on a high end
graphics card , this mkt isnt exactly huge to begin with.


The guns and butter spending pie you see in elementary econ books
talking about gov expenditures ---- on a personal level instead of the
huge slice technology would take and most of the deal hunters I see at
all the sites are primarily buying technology --- would probably shift
dramatically away from technology. Actually youd probably see a big
drop in overall spending and some shift toward services and other
things -- probably more savings. Ive seen people post about the same
type of thing ---  spending on yet another harddisk , memory stick ,
etc because they were rebated, even if they didnt really need it at
the moment . If they werent rebated,  80% of the superfluous spending
would disappear.

This may reinforce the inflationary trend. Tech does tend to fall in
price even without rebates obviously but not at quite the furious pace
and thats been a factor in offsetting the higher costs of fuel, food
etc.

People are complaining about the mail in time, and extra effort. The
manufactures know that a large percentage of the customers will forget, or
not have the time to mail in the coupons for the rebate. This is where they
get their upper edge on a bit more profit.

What many people are complaining about, is either they give the discount, or
not bother at all. If things become this way, it will be better for the
consumer, because maybe there will be price wars between product brands.

http://starbulletin.com/2005/04/02/business/index.html
Rebates going way of the dodo?

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. » Retailers' love affair with mail-in rebates may
be coming to an end.

In response to customer complaints, Best Buy Co., the world's largest
electronics retailer, promised yesterday to eliminate mail-in rebates
within two years. Best Buy's rivals, including Circuit City Stores and
CompUSA, are expected to follow suit.

"Our customers are telling us they just hate the process," said Ron
Boire, executive vice president and general merchandise manager at
Best Buy.

But it wasn't immediately clear yesterday whether the Richfield,
Minn., company would pass on the eliminated rebates in the form of
lower prices, though several industry watchers said they expect the
company to do so.

Mail-in rebates exploded onto the retail scene in the 1990s as a way
for retailers to stimulate sales without lowering their sticker
prices.

JANA wrote:
It would be pleasant to see legislation specifying that all such
rebates are to be given at the point of sale, and that any such
rebate in any adjoining state, province, or country be effective
whereever sold.  Another thing that needs doing is to insist on
advertising the actual sale price, both before and after rebate.
That would get rid of the TV ads for Slovenly Useless Vehicles at
$5000 off.

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 15:06:20 GMT, CBFalconer
<cbfalco***@yahoo.com> wrote:

Show quoteHide quoteWe can't have rebates at point of sale though unless the
rebates are much, much smaller.  Rebate promos count on only
a certain percentage of buyers ever fulfilling that rebate.

IOW, when I return a rebate and save, I save more, it was a
larger rebate because others didn't get theirs fulfilled.
This seems a bit proactive but based on past experiences has
been proven almost valid- they now seem to have
underestimated rebate submissions in some cases.

With everyone getting the rebate there would be no point to
them anymore, it'd just be a "sale" price.  Well some
companies do claim "instant rebate" which is all a bit fishy
IMO, as nobody really seems to care about the terminology
used instead of the final checkout price.

I agree with you on that one! But, unfortunately for us consumers, the
corporations would never go for it!

Show quoteHide quoteIt would be pleasant to see legislation specifying that all such
rebates are to be given at the point of sale, and that any such
rebate in any adjoining state, province, or country be effective
whereever sold.  Another thing that needs doing is to insist on
advertising the actual sale price, both before and after rebate.
That would get rid of the TV ads for Slovenly Useless Vehicles at
$5000 off.

JANA wrote:
Or more importantly, not getting the rebates that you sent in.

Companies that have ripped me off on rebates I've sent in:

PNY -- $50
US Robtics -- $20 (they sent half of it, but didn't send the rest).

Companies that made me hound them for 6 months continiously to get my
money back:

Western Digital, AT&T, Philips, Kingston, US Robotics.

Retailers that refused to honor them (and I haven't been back):

Best Buy $50 and I'm glad I haven't been in one since. No I don't need
your extended ripoff plan nor a magazine subscription to Brides!

Office Depot - $70 combined.  $90 worth or rebates, recieved $20.
Calling, harassing and otherwise hounding them did no good.


While it's true that over half of the rebates I've sent in they did
eventually hold up their end of the bargain, the failure rate of
companies to uphold this is near 45% in my experience.

--Timbertea

Show quote Hide quote I must have sent in more than fifty rebates and only one (Microsoft) didn't
honor.  A couple of companies (I've forgotten who) I had to call and remind.
I like the rebates at Costco and Circuit City because you can submit online.
The mail-in ones tend to worry me a little.

Yeah no doubt about it , the yare a PAIN IN ASS - rebates.  And I do
forget to send a few in. And many of the firms --- it got a lot worse
since a year ago, are dragging their feet and making you jump through
hoops. But if you are the persistent and organized type you can get
probably almost all your rebates.

I started racking up big losses in rebates last year.  It was making
me steamed and whined like everyone else .  I then took a break and
dogged those rebates calling and calling and calling and I got ALL of
them. In fact Depot sent me the check directly. And a Kingstn rebate
check that expired , they sent me another one and that was my fault.

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