Originally posted by: nbuubu
So are say, generously, 10-20k short term profits worth losing the small segment of their customers who really care about gouging? Who knows. I've deleted my Newegg browser bookmark. And I've spent far more than that at Newegg over the years.
Maybe they think the few people like me have a really short memory.
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
Originally posted by: nbuubu
So are say, generously, 10-20k short term profits worth losing the small segment of their customers who really care about gouging? Who knows. I've deleted my Newegg browser bookmark. And I've spent far more than that at Newegg over the years.
Maybe they think the few people like me have a really short memory.
Heh, I alone have spent that much over the years on Newegg purchases. I can't say that I'll never shop there again, but I will say that they lost my business on X-25M drives, and I'll be more intent on shopping around to find the best deal in the future. I used to buy from Newegg every time, even if ZZF / MWave / TankGuys / etc. was $10-20 cheaper. Now? Probably not.
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------
Sequential Read : 247.539 MB/s
Sequential Write : 100.744 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 185.156 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 100.425 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 22.343 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 56.675 MB/s
Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2009/09/17 22:47:58
Oh... damn. And this is on a motherboard that doesn't support AHCI.
AS SSD X-25M 160GB G2
CrystalDiskMark X-25M 160GB G2
CrystalDiskMark Raptor-X 150GB
HDTune X-25M 160GB G2
HDTune Raptor-X 150GB
HDTune WD 640GB AAKS
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
They certainly won't go out of business any time soon due to their price gouging tendencies (which have increased over the years), but it's not good for their goodwill and public image.
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Newegg is still (to the best of my knowledge) a pretty niche retailer. They used to be the go-to online store for computer builders and geeks everywhere, but I can't imagine their customer base has grown far beyond that niche.
I'd be willing to wager a huge portion of their customers are knowledgeable techies. People like us. It's not like all the girlfriends and parents and coworkers who come to us for tech advice know Newegg. They'd probably go to Amazon or Best Buy first, stores with massive brand recognition and huge marketing budgets.
So I do think that if they continue to use an over-MSRP, ebay-style pricing model, they will turn off a lot of us. Enough to go out of business? Slim chance. Enough to hurt? Maybe.
Curse makes a really good point. It takes a long long time to build customer loyalty, and a very short time to lose it.
Oh well. I've learned my lesson with Newegg.
Putting Newegg aside, I'd really like to buy a couple 80GB G2s and Raid 0 them, but it's a shame that TRIM won't work with Raid.
Seems as though the 80GB version is the only one shipping regularly lately, my laptop's 160GB has been on backorder through Amazon for weeks. The fact Amazon matched ZipZoomFly's online price, plus my Prime shipping and store credit makes me unwilling to pay more elsewhere.
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
They certainly won't go out of business any time soon due to their price gouging tendencies (which have increased over the years), but it's not good for their goodwill and public image.
It has worked out well (enough) for Apple.
I don't buy Apple products because for me the features aren't worth the price premium, but as a business model I have no issue acknowledging the fact they do appear to know what they are doing.
Same with Starbucks too I suppose. Last place you'd catch me buying a cup of overpriced coffee, but that doesn't mean it is a business model doomed to certain failure, quite the contrary.
Originally posted by: undoIT
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Newegg is still (to the best of my knowledge) a pretty niche retailer. They used to be the go-to online store for computer builders and geeks everywhere, but I can't imagine their customer base has grown far beyond that niche...
According to their About Us, Newegg is the "Newegg.com Inc. is the second-largest online-only retailer in the United States."
http://www.newegg.com/Info/AboutUs.aspx
I don't know if that statement is true, but I believe they are well beyond niche at this point. It is a shame that they are gauging for the new G2 drives ($629 for the SSDSA2MH160G2C1 is obscene). But, all you have to do is go somewhere else for a better price. If people aren't buying at the inflated price, they will have no choice but to drop it down to something more reasonable.
Originally posted by: nbuubu
I'm not really qualified to argue that point. They probably are beyond niche, but I still think their main customers are knowledgeable geeks, not sorority girls and soccer moms and businessmen who're cheating on their wives. You know, everyone else.
I still think knowledgeable geeks are a smaller market segment who you don't want to spoil your reputation with.
According to the list at Internet Retailer Newegg is 9th in online sales with 2.1 Billion in 2008 ( http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/list.asp ).
So they're only really second if you artificially remove all the retailers with physical stores. Which is fine, but "second" sounds a lot more impressive than "ninth with over 1/10th the dollar sales of Amazon, and far far less sales volume than Amazon."
That ranking is measured only in pure dollar value. I'd be curious to see what their volume of sales units are, which would be a bit more relevant in my poorly supported "niche" argument. For that, number-of-transactions would be a more important in determining the size of their brand presence as a store.
Just guessing, but I'd bet that Amazon, Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Sears and Best Buy sell far more low-priced items. So they'd have more customers, and more transactions than Dell, Apple, CDW and Newegg, which may have a higher ranking due to the fact they sell a mostly higher-priced items. I dunno.
My "niche" comment really stemmed from running into someone who worked for Newegg at a party a few weeks ago. I work a lot down in Southern California, where Newegg is based.
He's been with the company since it was founded and heads up their Customer Service department, and was surprised I'd heard of them. He explained no one he ever meets had heard of Newegg, and described his company as a small online retailer who was really doing well. Anecdotal, but that's a big part of my niche bias.
You're probably right. But the bigger point of not wanting to piss off your customer base is still valid I think. Because when you sell a lot of <$50 items, losing even a small number of customers could work out to more lost future sales than what you gain in over-MSRP sales.
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
They certainly won't go out of business any time soon due to their price gouging tendencies (which have increased over the years), but it's not good for their goodwill and public image.
It has worked out well (enough) for Apple.
I don't buy Apple products because for me the features aren't worth the price premium, but as a business model I have no issue acknowledging the fact they do appear to know what they are doing.
Same with Starbucks too I suppose. Last place you'd catch me buying a cup of overpriced coffee, but that doesn't mean it is a business model doomed to certain failure, quite the contrary.
Those are slightly different business models though. Both of those examples have value added for their customers (debatable value), and offer products you can't really get anywhere else.
Apple sells a unique OS, a unique design aesthetic, and a unique level of pretentiousness and false superiority.
Starbucks sells a unique flavor of burnt tasting and overprocessed coffee, and a unique atmosphere of pretentiousness and false superiority.
Newegg has no product differentiation between themselves and anyone else. It's not like you buy a CPU from Newegg and accept a premium because Newegg is more glamorous than, say, Zip Zoom Fly. They're both just CPUs. Identical products.
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
They certainly won't go out of business any time soon due to their price gouging tendencies (which have increased over the years), but it's not good for their goodwill and public image.
It has worked out well (enough) for Apple.
I don't buy Apple products because for me the features aren't worth the price premium, but as a business model I have no issue acknowledging the fact they do appear to know what they are doing.
Same with Starbucks too I suppose. Last place you'd catch me buying a cup of overpriced coffee, but that doesn't mean it is a business model doomed to certain failure, quite the contrary.
Those are slightly different business models though. Both of those examples have value added for their customers (debatable value), and offer products you can't really get anywhere else.
Apple sells a unique OS, a unique design aesthetic, and a unique level of pretentiousness and false superiority.
Starbucks sells a unique flavor of burnt tasting and overprocessed coffee, and a unique atmosphere of pretentiousness and false superiority.
Newegg has no product differentiation between themselves and anyone else. It's not like you buy a CPU from Newegg and accept a premium because Newegg is more glamorous than, say, Zip Zoom Fly. They're both just CPUs. Identical products.
I was merely using Starbucks and Apple as other examples of businesses that seem to know what they are doing as a means of suggesting that perhaps Newegg does know what they are doing despite the collective forum intelligence here deciding that Newegg doesn't know of the ramifications of what they are doing with their business model.
I disagree though in your position that Newegg does not add value to the end-user, IME they add value in terms of customer support (multiple events of personal experience there) and ease of RMA as well as that one-stop online shopping opportunity that you can't get at say ZZF or Tankguys. And I like paying for 3-day shipping (or getting free shipping) and the items invariably show up in 2 days or less, which has definitely never been the case from ZZF for me.
Correction:Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
233 at Keenzo or 329 at New Egg??? is that right?
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Who knows if embracing the ebay pricing model will benefit them in the long run. I just think, looking at rough numbers, that losing even a handful of regular customers by going way over MSRP could easily outweigh whatever short-term profits they generate today.
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Free Marketers vs Normal People
Don't you think Newegg is being a little misleading when they list the "Original Price" and not the "MSRP Price"?Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: nbuubu
Who knows if embracing the ebay pricing model will benefit them in the long run. I just think, looking at rough numbers, that losing even a handful of regular customers by going way over MSRP could easily outweigh whatever short-term profits they generate today.
This is the part where I get the feeling people are making mountains out of molehills. The entire premise for why Newegg is raising prices above MSRP is because they have little stock of that item.
Meaning you weren't going to get to buy it from them at MSRP in any event because their stock would have been zero almost immediately had they listed it at MSRP.
So either they keep price at MSRP and you don't get to the choice to buy it (at any price) because it isn't in stock, or they raise the price above MSRP and you get to choose whether or not to buy it based on the value the item on question holds for you.
In all cases newegg isn't going to sell more or less items, the entire outset of the problem is created by limited supply, i.e. they can only sell their limited number of items and then that is it.
If folks want to get passionate about it and decide to become biased against Newegg and avoid purchasing other items that are at or near MSRP (and in plentiful stock) from them then those folks are really only hurting themselves by choosing to reduce their options when it comes to viable resellers they will purchase from.
I personally find the whole thing to be an interesting litmus test in seeing just how much effort people are willing to go to in thinking about the situation before passing rash judgement about it. This is a world full of victims on the lookout for villains.
Implying one cannot be both? Divisive language much?Originally posted by: nbuubu
Free Marketers vs Normal People
Originally posted by: her209
Don't you think Newegg is being a little misleading when they list the "Original Price" and not the "MSRP Price"?
Exhibit A
Original Price: $349.99
You Save: $20.00
$329.99
Originally posted by: taltamir
there is nothing original about it. This is just a flat out lie that they pulled out of their nether regions.
I am all for them selling something for what it is worth. I am against lying to customers with the whole "original price" BS.
Originally posted by: ilkhan
re: raid and trim
Do we know if a new driver is all it'll take to pass along the trim commands or if it'll require new hardware, especially for ICH-R/PCH-R RAID?