I’m sure you remember the 1982 classic, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” A great movie about the trials and tribulations of early 1980’s high school life as perceived through the eyes of a handful of students. Robert Romanus (AKA, Mike Damone) was the ‘go-to guy’ for concert tickets, as well as other key adolescent information. Damone had his five point plan on scoring with women, and so do I on your approach to finding the right holiday gifts for Techno Geeks on a shoe-string budget.
First (the obvious,) inventory levels are high and there is a BIG need for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to translate the inventory glut into sales and cash flow. That said, there are lots of great deals beginning to surface and you may want to put your list together sooner rather than later so as to take advantage of the deals. Clearly, there are many folks who are cash-strapped and waiting until the last minute. However, in my experience, the best deals surface in November and do not get any better until February/March when unsold inventory gets put on the clearance rack. The post-Christmas January rush does account for lots of transaction volume, yet it is unlikely that if you wait until then you will score a better price on that electronics item you want.
There are many great sites that aggregate deals for products – below is a quick list of the ones I follow:
- Fatwallet – I frequently check the Top Deals section of the site. Make sure to read the posts from the community as they are very helpful
- XPBargains – Great place to look when buying tech equipment. For example, it lists what inventory Dell needs to move and the associated timing of expiring deals.
- Got Apex – Another great tech deals destination. Similar to XPBargains.
- Woot – The one-deal-per-day phenomenon. Basically, an Internet retailer with a loyal community following around deeply discounted 24 hour electronics. There is also an iPhone App to keep track of daily ‘woots’ from many online retail sites called Wootwatch.
- Fresh Deals – An iPhone App that gets updated on a moment-by-moment basis with the most up-to-date aggregated deals across several online deal gathering communities.
Second, think strategically about your home/office technology needs as you may want to contemplate upgrading the core horsepower that runs your home/office network. For example, I generally get lots of questions about digital pictures, video, and music. After understanding people’s desires, I often ask about their plan to store and backup all this media. Typically I am told about a strategy that involves a USB hard drive or CD/DVDs. This is not an effective strategy, especially for critical family/company pictures, video, financial data, etc. After recommending they read a blog post I wrote about three-location back-up and the cloud, I typically suggest they invest in a network area storage drive (NAS.) This is a simple piece of equipment (connected directly to your home/office router) which typically holds a few hard drives (between 2 and 8 ) and provides reliable data/media storage and backup for all connected computers in your home/office. The NAS is smart enough so that all pictures/video/data is systematically copied onto all NAS hard drives at the same time. In the event of a hard drive failure, you would simply push a button, take out the bad hard drive, and replace it with a new one. All your important files are safe and secure as the other drive(s) automatically have copies of your important files on them. Several companies make these NAS devices. Personally, I am a loyal customer and fan of the Netgear ReadyNAS line, yet maintain decent less expensive (consumer-grade) Buffalo NAS equipment for others. Also, I hear good things about the HP MediaSmart Server series.
Third, don’t waste your cash by replacing your laptop with a new one because it runs slow, has a virus, spyware, or old software on it. Yes, I am aware there are great deals on laptops and everyone wants something new, shiny, and with a Bazillion Megahertz, RAM, and Megabytes. Trust me – I am one of those and my wife can attest to that. However, in my experience, most folks are replacing equipment too early and throwing away perfectly fine hardware that simply may have a virus, spyware, or outdated software. My advice is to find those original software disks that came with your computer and use them to reformat your computer to original factory settings. Yes, you will need to backup your data as this will delete everything off the computer. However, you will likely find the computer runs great when fully cleaned and brought back to original factory settings. If you can’t do this yourself – find a young geek and pay them $100 to do this for you.
If you are one of those folks that have a need for serious computing horsepower (for media, design, special software, etc.) aside from typical web browsing and email, you may need to upgrade.
Fourth, be careful when making purchases online as no two online retailers are created the same. They come in all shapes and sizes with varying professionalism, support, and overall services. The simple cliche holds true, “if it is too good to be true, there is a catch.” Make sure to practice good online judgment and spend time reading the reviews from other consumers. Pay special attention to shipping details (how long, costs, handling time, carriers used, etc.) policies on sales tax (some online retailers charge tax and others don’t based upon specific criteria), return merchandise authorization (RMA) policies (items can sometimes arrive damaged or defective), available phone support, and product warranty details.
I typically purchase technology items (depending on price) through Newegg (only collects sales tax in NJ, CA, and TN,) Amazon, Buy.com, Apple store, and Dell.
Last, don’t forget about eBay and craigslist as both sites offer great deals on items you may not want to purchase through (expensive) retail. There are many items I’ve purchased and sold through both of these sites and, for the most part, have been pleased with the overall value and experience. If you are new to these sites, my suggestion is that you spend some time lurking to understand how things work as it may take some time getting used to the local tricks. If you are one of those people that only purchases new cars you may not feel comfortable with these sites. However, if you are comfortable with the overall value you get when buying a few year old car – eBay and craigslist may be perfect for you. The obvious cautionary disclaimer – be respectful and careful when dealing with others on these sites as there are weirdos out there and there is no need to put yourself at risk.
Happy Shopping.
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