I Left a Comment

The entry below is not mine - it's from a friend's blog. But, I actually posted a comment - something I almost never do - only to find out, he's planning to take the post down. :(
I like my response, and it's a good start to a theme I would like to explore more. So, here is his entry, and my response:


Deals on techbargains.com

I am amazed at how the internet has changed shopping. Deal hunting used to be a time consuming process that required reading through tons of ads. Or one might have to spend hours going from store to store. Websites now allow one to find the best deals online in minutes. My personal favorite site to find deals is techbargains.com. I use this site for almost all of my computer related shopping. I know I have saved a lot of money since finding the site. Even aside from the excellent deals, one can save money indirectly. Over the holidays, I purchased inexpensive radar detectors that I found on techbargains.com for my whole family and myself. Thus, not only did I save money on the radar detector, but I’ve also saved money on speeding tickets. I highly recommend techbargains.com.

This entry was posted on 29 February 2008 at 10:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
One Response to “Deals on techbargains.com”

1. Rail Says:
1 March 2008 at 7:38 pm

While I agree with you that websites such as techbargains.com can save people time and money when they know exactly what they want, I disagree that it can do so most of the time.

Before these websites, “pouring over tons of ads” generally meant looking at the weekly advertisements in the Sunday paper while relaxing with one’s family. This allowed the readers to browse over various ads for different types of whatever products they wanted. They could then figure out which stores they wanted to visit, go out, talk to a salesperson who could answer they questions not answered by the ads, sometimes try out the item and, usually, take the item home with them that day.

Internet sites, even comparative ones like pricegrabber.com do not stream-line this type of process perfectly. People who can’t find all the information they want about a product on the site have to spend time researching the product on a variety of different sites. Because the information they usually do get is from other consumers, they might not get the kinds of technical or expert information someone could get from a salesperson. Additionally, those using the sites for this type of shopping may have now spent as much time doing on-line research as they would have spent the old way. Once products are ordered, the customers have to wait days to weeks to get the items. And then, it may not be what they were looking for, but they had no way to try it out, or look at it before buying it. Returning things bought on the internet is often a big hassle, involving a lot of waiting.

You might say that the on-line research time takes the same or less time than going through the ads and talking to sales people, and that the possibility of needing to return something is worth the trade-off of the perceived benefits. This is your call to make. However, I think that there is something else important that comes into play here. Looking through newspaper ads and going to stores are things families, couples and friends can do together. It can create bonding in its own way. The internet method cuts out this communication and connecting in humanity. It is my belief that this solitary nature of the internet, and computers in general is detrimental to society. People lose the ability to connect with people beyond mere words on a page.
This may be one of those times where we just have to agree to disagree.

As far as knowing - I want exactly product x and I don’t need it for at least a week - then yes, websites like techbargain.com are great.

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