Hi all,
What's the best timing for buying computer-related
gadgets in US? e.g. Video card, Apple PowerBook,
etc.
By best timing I mean huge discounts, liquidations
TIA,
Giovanni
One-at-a-time when you see the deal, not trying to buy all
parts on any one calendar date or week.
Huge discounts are often promotions for the opening of a
product into a market, to help sales of unpopular products,
or when the tech gets old and is being cleared out. That's
more subject to the particular product's lifecycle than some
other variables like "early spring" or "close to Christmas".
Desirable modern parts are seldom liquidated, so long as
they sell while still modern, desirable, they retain their
market value. Perhaps one of the best ways to time such
purposes is to wait until the newer, more desirable product
has been in the market for a month or two as that
depreciates the older model. There's a limited window of
opportunity there though, because soon enough the
lowest-cost sellers have sold out and only those who haven't
marked down the product, or always had a higher % markup,
still have stock.
If you're not so pick you can also buy based on available
rebates, go deal hunting, etc- depends a bit on how much
work and time you want to put into it as well as what volume
you need of any given part or product. Beyond that it's hard
to generalize about time of year because product lifecycles
are relatively short, you may only have 18 months or less in
a cycle and within that there is as much value based on
performance, features, and competition as there is on other
timing variables outside of the technology's market
placement like a calendar period.
Considering the timing of the post, if you need only a
single item(s) you might keep a lookout for Black Friday
deals after Thanksgiving.
