--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "I am the eternal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:48 PM, Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Rumor has it Wal-Mart (if you can stand to go there) will have the > > Magnavox Blu-Ray player on sale for $128 on Black Friday. This > > is a rebranded Funai player and also the same as the Sylvania. > > More info on these players here: > > http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1026390 > > > > If you can't stand Wal-Mart I would expect other retailers to > > have a similar deal. > > Wal-Mart has special models (slight variations of the model numbers) > made for it, often of cheaper quality, hence Wal-Mart can charge > less and other stores can't price match because they don't carry > the exact same model.
The type of merchandise you refer to is called "manufactured to price point." Essentially, Wal- Mart decides what they want to sell the player for to undercut their competition, and then they approach the manufacturers and say, "Build us one that we can sell at price X per unit and buy from you at price Y per unit, with a guaranteed purchase from you of Z thousand units." Price Y is often ridiculously low, but some manu- facturers go for it because of the volume of the potential purchase. So they achieve the price point by using cheaper materials on the inside of the case, like cheaper hard drives, disk readers, chipsets, etc. Sometimes the cheaper unit is a good buy. A rule of thumb I was once given on this was to count up the number of moving parts in the product you are contemplating buying. The fewer the moving parts, the better chance you have of not getting burned if those parts are of a lesser grade than the same manufacturer puts into the regular versions of that product it lists in its catalog. The way to tell whether the product you are looking at in a large store that can afford to do this with its suppliers is to note down the model number of the unit and then go look it up on that manufacturer's website. If that model number is not present, what you are looking at was "manufactured to price point."
