A Hardly Normal Purchase
I’ve been looking around for a Nintendo DS Lite for my youngest son Leon’s upcoming birthday and have been toying between the idea of buying him a new DS versus buying a second hand one.
His two older siblings both had new DS’s so my initial preference was to buy him a new one too but, on the other hand, Leon is getting his DS earlier than his siblings so there is a concern that, at only age 3, he will not necessarily treat his DS with the care and respect that I might prefer.
Anyway, after seeing the price of a few second hand DS’s I was still keen on buying him a new one so started to shop around the Canberra stores to see what was available.
Most of the major department and video game stores had prices around A$199 for a DSLite with no games. JB-Hifi, my usual shop of choice for electronic items had a price for a DSLite on its own of A$179 – I would have asked if they could improve on that price but in typical fashion it was hard to find a free salesperson to talk to.
I therefore went to JB’s sister store, Clive Anthonys, who also had DS Lites on their own for A$179 (no surprise that they were in line with JB Hifi) but with a sign on it saying “Less for cash” (something this store always promotes itself on). I therefore asked what was the less for cash price they’d do it for… after some checking the salesperson advised that they actually could not improve on the A$179 as they didn’t have sufficient margins to offer it any cheaper. After therefore expressing my disgust to the salesperson that they shouldn’t put a less for cash sign next to the consoles if they had no ability to reduce the prices I decided, at my wife’s suggestion, to visit Harvey Norman.
Now I must admit I usually avoid Harvey Norman like the plague. Normally it is the most overpriced rip-off store in Canberra. However, I may have to re-assess that opinion now as they sold me a DSLite with Guitar Hero on Tour package for A$150. I don’t particularly want the Guitar Hero game but can probably sell that on Ebay for about A$25 bringing the cost of a new DS Lite down to A$125, over 35% cheaper than many stores in Canberra!
So there we go, a hardly normal purchase from Harvey Norman! How bizarre… maybe I need to keep them in mind next time I want something electrical after all!