I am seeing a lot of of basically “I want a lower price” posts for UK.
So I’ll share how to get the lowest Anker product price in the UK.
- Basic theory
The law of supply and demand
If you simply want something, you are causing demand, you cannot influence demand downwards, you cannot drive supply upwards, so you are driving prices up. Your “I want” is the core of why the price is higher.
If your “need” was actually driven by external common factors, like a positive review, the weather, etc, then you have been influenced to want during a price-increase macro event.
- Think far ahead
The key is to buy when others do not want to buy, when demand is lower. This removes external factors so you are not being told when to want but taking control of when.
So what do you want next year? What is wearing out? What problems are likely ahead?
- Begin looking well ahead.
Prices do drop to very low for short times. This is common in marketplaces during random over-supply to under-demand periods. The key is you then buy before others want, so be ahead and not swimming in the sheep of demand.
- Know the price you want.
Some sales are just hype fests, trying to drum up interest. One technique sellers use is to use an artificially high price for a period, then to offer a discount. Often the discounted price is not that low actually. If you didn’t know in advance what is a fair price, you’d rush to buy while a time-limited “discount” is happening.
- Never ask for a discount.
Asking raises the profile, causing demand, so by asking you lower the chance of a discount. When you ask for a discount in a public forum on product X, you make more people look at product X, so the demand goes up for it, and you created more people waiting for the discount who may buy it before you.
No, silent waiting.
- A watched clock moves slower.
Get ahead of your wants and turn them from a weakness, of others basically manipulating you into wanting at the same time as everyone else to drive prices up, and plan well ahead and track prices, so each individual item becomes unimportant, you got time, no rush, that makes the perception of time to run faster, so it feels like less time passed, than the person who just wants what they want they decided.
Also when emotional, you are not in control, time moves slower, so venting and impatience makes it feel a longer time. So by never asking for a discount, you are in more control.
- If its a bargain buy two.
The next time there is a discount is likely going to be about the same as the current one. In the long term you have inflation and technology improvements.
So if its a mature product, it is unlikely to be a significantly lower price in the future. If it’s a new product, it has a technology advantage which will age, so the price will be lower in the future.
If you are tracking a very low price it is probably not going to be repeated soon, so consider buying two. Then wear and tear doesn’t cause then an urgent need.
Summary
- never ask for a discount, it causes the opposite
- plan well ahead, zero spontanaity.
- have your list of items you need and track prices.
- buy when it as its lowest price, generally not when urgent need.
UK specific issues now
The UK is a small island off a large continent during a pandemic. That is compromising supply. But technology, like with Anker, is often an answer to pandemic (work from home, needs gadgets) so you’d predict a pandemic drives up prices of technology. It would also drive down prices of items used when not in pandemic, such as Oil prices.
So now for example, before lockdown ends, is the time to fill up your gas tank and that 5L can. Because supply is reducing in response to lower demand, and then when the lockdown ends, demand increases, before supply increases so gas prices will be higher, very high, a few weeks after kockdown ends, so buy a few weeks worth of gas now.
USA vs UK
USA is a 7 times the GDP and 5 times the population of UK.
UK has a different electrical socket to US and different to the much larger Europe market electric socket.
This means the UK can never get ahead of supply vs demand in technology as a made-in-China product will have more periods of over-supply in USA than UK has.
That does not mean in UK you have to pay more than in USA, because all products have the same floor of raw cost. What happens is the lowest price the UK sees is the same as the lowest price the USA sees but not at the same time.
Worked Example, Eufy Camera 2.
USA pricing history
UK pricing history
So here you see:
- the exchange rate is roughly the same as the difference in how salestax is charge pre / post price display so $ and £ are similar actual price.
- they have shared the same lowest price around $280/£280
- the average price has been broadly the same between USA and UK.
- the USA has more often discounts than UK, meaning the UK buyer had to be more patient and know more in advance than a USA buyer, but the UK was not penalised, or penalised those didn’t think far ahead.
So a UK person who says now the Eufycam2 is more expensive in the USA, what were they thinking they needed back in mid January? Or even mid March? Anyone who complains about price now, they caused their problem not thinking back in January what they’d need in April.
without going into technicalities how are you doing this?