Are Discounts Bad?

worldwidehappiness on 24/06/2019 - 14:04
Last edited 24/06/2019 - 14:05

I'm beginning to suspect that discounts are bad. Nearly every discounted item I have bought in the last few years has had a problem with it. For example:

  • LG phone battery dying after 3 months
  • Sportscraft shirts with button holes too big or shirt length too short
  • Logitech mouse with imbalanced feet
  • Lenovo laptop needing a complete reinstall of Windows to fix sleep problems
  • Samsung USB flash drive with seeming dead sectors
  • Of course, fruit and vege and even packaged food is nearly always low quality when it's discounted

In fact, the only 100% good discounted thing I've bought in the last few years is a Tanita body scale and non-physical things like discount phone plans. Oh, Green and Blacks organic chocolate is always good even when discounted.

Possible explanations for the bad outcomes:

  • More products are being made in cheap labour Asian countries leading to low quality
  • Discounts normally applied to bad stock
  • Personal bad luck

So is it just me, or do others have similar experiences?

General Discussion

Comments

  • dapt on 24/06/2019 - 14:11
    +4

    Bargains still have a warranty against faults.

  • Mad-cow on 24/06/2019 - 14:24
    +12

    Might aswell hand in that ozbargin card now.

  • Ziggy28 on 24/06/2019 - 14:24

    It's just your bad luck. Don't buy any discounted items from now on.

  • rompastompa on 24/06/2019 - 14:24
    +2

    Discounts/Bargains aren't all about the price.

    Things you need to weigh up:

    When was the item manufactured? Your phone might be two years old, and still be 'brand new'.
    How was the item stored? Has it been in hot/cold/humid environments?
    What revision is the item? Are you buying first revision full of bugs? or 4th that has fixed many bugs?
    What issues were found after it's manufactured? Known issues may lower price.

    Where are you buying the item from? Have they bulk-bought many potentially 'defected' items?
    Has the item been refurbished, but the vendor failed to notify you?
    Where did the vendor purchase the item from, is it under a contract where the wholesaler owns the item, not the vendor (Costs more generally, but likely the 'newest' stock.).
    What are the post purchase service like? Local brick and mortar stores would want to keep customers happier due to word of mouth advertising, and likely buy 'new/latest' manufactured revisions.

  • BertieBrown on 24/06/2019 - 14:27
    +1

    It really depends on why the product, whatever it is, is being discounted. It’s not necessarily always an indication of poor quality. Also, as dapt has said retailers are still bound by ACL for discounted products, at any rate.

    Sometimes, there may be a perception of poor quality, such that it makes one tend to assume that the fault is related to the discounted cost of the product, whereas if they’d purchased the same item for a higher price would be less inclined to believe that the quality, or lack thereof, is purely borne from the discounted cost. For instance, the same shirt sold months earlier has similar faults but the buyer instead associates the fault to the brand, or the store, rather than the cost, or presence of a discount.

    Yes, manufacturers and retailers will produce products and sell them directly proportionately (most of the time), such that manufacturers cannot sell supremely high quality products for dirt cheap and continue to grow and make a profit, but if we take two contemporary examples; Hyundai, and Hisense, whom are both up and coming manufacturers of different products, where each sell, and relative to other brands, reduce the cost of their products, however still make a quality product because they’re trying to break into a market.

    A lot of it is psychological, I’m not suggesting your slow, rather that we’re all manipulated by highly advanced social marketing phenomenon to ensure that we associate poor quality with low cost items (as default, obviously not everyone thinks this way). Many buyers are willing to forgive a plethora of problems, or shortcomings with high quality products, because they remain confident that they purchased ‘the right’ product based on the initial cost.

  • Prince K on 24/06/2019 - 15:16
    +6

    Yes discounts are bad. Make sure you pay RRP next time you buy something

  • Taro Milk Tea on 24/06/2019 - 15:41
    -1

    Of course it's bad, it's a discount…you can not count on it, that's why it's called discount

  • [Deactivated] on 24/06/2019 - 15:43
    +2

    You can always pay more for a bad item. It's not going to make a bad product any better.

    Bargains do not equal inferior products.

    The opposite is also true.

  • MagicMushroom on 24/06/2019 - 15:50
    +3

    You must have done something to the Ozbargain god

  • worldwidehappiness on 24/06/2019 - 17:09

    So everyone is saying that they have noticed no correlation between discounts and quality? Must be bad luck on my part then. A statistical outlier. It happens.

    • cwongtech on 24/06/2019 - 17:12
      +2

      My discounts are usually from discounted gift cards..
      Thus the end product for me is never tainted by the process, only the payment stage is affected :D

      Strive for the best, for less :)

      • worldwidehappiness on 24/06/2019 - 17:30

        Oh, that's a good idea. Have to be thinking ahead to do that.

    • [Deactivated] on 24/06/2019 - 17:37
      +1

      Yes, and I've stated so a few years ago on this site.
      Dick Smith (pre-kogan) discounted stuff that was customer returns, also plainly faulty goods (a gps system in my case). Woolworths took 20 cartons of LF milk I returned as it was faulty, returned it to the shelf (Rocko) and dropped the price the very next day.
      Again Woolworth puts pens etc regularly on sale when they are partly dried up.
      Three realworld examples is just the start, but the incentive to cheat this way is common enough to warrant discussion.

      I've stated this prob before on Ozb, and noone cares it seems.
      Solution is receipts and warranty I guess.

  • Axelstrife on 24/06/2019 - 17:35

    Logitech mouse with imbalanced feet
    Lenovo laptop needing a complete reinstall of Windows to fix sleep problems

    Buy new Mouse feet = a couple dollars easy fix
    Reinstalling windows is 100% free and easy to do.

    discounted fruit and veg is always bad quility.

    The other two is just bad luck.

    • worldwidehappiness on 24/06/2019 - 18:00

      "Buy new Mouse feet = a couple of dollars easy fix"

      Do they sell mouse feet in different sizes so that you can match them? Never heard of that solution and doesn't seem easy to me. Do you buy a pack of 10 or something and then experiment until you find a balancing set of four? BTW, every Logitech mouse I've bought had a problem, except surprisingly the cheapest one.

      "Reinstalling windows is 100% free and easy to do."

      I spent 2 months talking to customer service and experimenting with their many solutions before I found the solution by myself online. People are still asking about this online with no answer from Lenovo.

      • Axelstrife on 24/06/2019 - 18:46
        +1

        For Gaming mice there is many aftermarket feet most alot better than stock feet, so theres a good chance there are feet availible for you since Logitech the one of if not the largest for Mice. For mice which i cannot find aftermarket feet which is only less known mice i just use https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2-Sets-8pcs-0-6mm-mouse-feet-mou…? Feet doesnt have to be the same shape as the original.

        As for windows.
        https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10
        Download the tool from here which you will need a USB stick with atleast 8GB of space after this is done you need to boot the laptop useing this usb stick as the booth drive (when you turn your laptop on it normally tells you which key to press to enter boot menue), the installation is pretty straightforward from there.

        No Windows key should be needed as it would be linked to your Motherboard.

  • Korban Dallas on 24/06/2019 - 18:27
    +1

    Hard Drives have been of low quality ever since the Tsunami. Picked up the last 1.5 years though.

    I have had almost the same amount of DOA drives as working drives.

  • H E B on 24/06/2019 - 21:43
    +1

    Common sense.

    Discounts on a otherwise unopened no batch known product - better than paying full price for the same problem anyway!

    Discounts on soiled goods/goods no longer as fit for purpose (outdated) etc. Of course you get probably what you pay for.

    End of the day, would you choose discount over no discount if there is no guarantee the product will be any different???

  • orangetrain on 25/06/2019 - 08:37

    You remind me of a guy who yelled at a girl at Woolies cig counter demanding a refund after tasting off meat last night after buying it a week ago while it was on clearance (those expire within 1-2 days).

    Also, it's like wine. Price is not an indication of quality.

  • Ughhh on 25/06/2019 - 10:57
    +1

    Next time you see something discounted, offer or maybe demand to pay full price instead. That way, it'll last much much longer ;)!

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join