Sales and shopping habits - have yours changed?

[jimbouk]

This might be the opposite to some people as I'm quite a hesitant shopper and generally try and avoid rushing and getting things in the sale. I don't always get it right, but when I buy things I like to think I'm getting good 'value', bang-for-buck, that sort of thing. This needs to take into account what something is 'worth' and how 'good' it is.

Point in case, I'd quite like a new graphics card. A Radeon RX 580 8GB would do the trick nicely. So they're 'good' enough in my opinion to consider (enough umph for 1440p, freesync if I go down that route, longevity with good DX12 performance), but when it comes to 'worth' I'm stuck. I just can't bring myself to fork out the current ~£280 they're going for when they've sold for £220 from various retailers recently (Black Friday, Amazon weird pricing). So I just don't buy it and will waste my money elsewhere instead!

Anyone else been paralysed clicking the buy button by sale prices skewing an items perceived value?

Note, lots of 'quotes' here, peoples opinions on value, worth and goodness vary...

[shaithis]

I'd have thought most people would be looking at value, what with money being worth less on a daily basis!

Case in point, I refuse to upgrade my CPU/mobo at the moment due to DDR4 pricing....it is hideous compared to what it has been.

The 580 is artificially inflated due to mining. Again, I couldn't bring myself to pay the premium due to other peoples usage of a product. It has to be worth it for me.

I am guessing that a lot of hardware sales have taken a hit this last year....I spent around £600 in the last 12 months on PC upgrades.......some years I'd have spent 5 times that.

[Millennium]

It's not a great situation with GPUs and even RAM at the moment, Ram has gone up by 100-120% and GPUs are really overpriced. The 580 is just a 480 and it's much more expensive than it was. The Vega's have poor drivers and are hard to find.

I have spent a fair bit on PC hardware this year. I picked up a Vega 56 for launch price on launch day. I got a Ryzen 7 1700 for around £270 you can get maybe an 1800x for that now (maybe, or recently, there have been good deals...). I spend £210 on 3200 CL14 B die 16gb DDR4 very recently. Just because I felt my ryzen deserves it. I think that was maybe a mistake but whatever, I can now more easily upgrade to 32gb or Ryzen 7nm and take fuller advantage when the time comes.

I really wish I had taken proper advantage of the recent Ebay 20% (25%?) sale but I was busy that day and the laptop I really want isn't really out yet.
And finally looks like I'm getting a significant android phone upgrade to S8 but some issues with that hopefully sort it in the next couple of days. My most used device these days especially when I'm away from my desktop so hopefully worth it!

[Saracen]

....

Note, lots of 'quotes' here, peoples opinions on value, worth and goodness vary...

True, but ultimately, only one (*) opinion matters ...yours.


Personally, I tend to be quite careful what I buy, and am not influenced by sales unless either

- I'd already decided to buy item, and sale price is better, or

- I had excluded item as not "worth it" at full price, but at sale price it is worth it.


And the older I get, the more considered and less impetuous my spending gets, which is truly ironic considering my reckess spending is decreasing in inverse proportion to ability to do so.

(*) "Yours" is defined by either what you think, or what you are told you think, subject to marital status.

[Xlucine]

I spent a few weeks waiting for my new monitor to come down in price. I first saw it for ~£240, figured I'd wait till black friday to see if it got cheaper. This didn't occur, and the price crept up to £280, so I waited some more. Finally it got back to £250 w/p&p, I figured it was close enough, and I'm pretty satisfied.

[badass]

This might be the opposite to some people as I'm quite a hesitant shopper and generally try and avoid rushing and getting things in the sale. I don't always get it right, but when I buy things I like to think I'm getting good 'value', bang-for-buck, that sort of thing. This needs to take into account what something is 'worth' and how 'good' it is.

Point in case, I'd quite like a new graphics card. A Radeon RX 580 8GB would do the trick nicely. So they're 'good' enough in my opinion to consider (enough umph for 1440p, freesync if I go down that route, longevity with good DX12 performance), but when it comes to 'worth' I'm stuck. I just can't bring myself to fork out the current ~£280 they're going for when they've sold for £220 from various retailers recently (Black Friday, Amazon weird pricing). So I just don't buy it and will waste my money elsewhere instead!

Anyone else been paralysed clicking the buy button by sale prices skewing an items perceived value?

Note, lots of 'quotes' here, peoples opinions on value, worth and goodness vary...

I'm the same. I'll take months (or even years) after deciding I am going to buy a new computer part and actually buying it. Usually due to past sale prices. Before I decide there must be a tangible (to me) improvement or I won't bother. I upgraded my Core2 quad at least 2 years later than planned because the performance increase just wasn't enough to justify replacing motherboard, processor and memory.

[scaryjim]

It's not a great situation with GPUs and even RAM at the moment, Ram has gone up by 100-120% and GPUs are really overpriced. ...

These two things are, of course, not entirely unrelated. The restriction of memory supply should also apply to GDDR, meaning card manufacturers are paying more for their 8GB than they use to....

I used to be a real hoarder - I'd buy all sorts of things just to say I had them - but I've tightened my belt in steadily over the last decade or so, and particularly in the last few years. Part of that is having a house - the damn things are money sinks, and if I could find a decent landlord anywhere I would probably have more disposable income - and part of it is getting used to having nice (i.e. expensive) holidays, and maybe part of it is just a changing opinion on what, in the end, will make me happy.

For instance, I need a new laptop. My old one's developed a horrid grinding noise from the fan bearing and the connection to the screen is starting to go, so at certain angles it flickers and corrupts horribly. But there's not currently a single device on the market that costs the same or less than I paid for my current laptop and would represent a genuine upgrade. And paying more for the same performance (or at least the same experience, which isn't necessarily the same thing) would not make me happy. So, I haven't bought a new laptop, and I will continue to not buy a new laptop until something forces my hand - either the old one dies properly, or someone releases a device that fits my expectations.

Essentially, I've hit a point where I see things as more of a burden than a goal. I still have a bit of acquisition desire - there's a certain sense of satisfaction in having the ability to get something you "want" - but if a thing isn't going to meaningfully improve my life in some way, I now know that it will eventually become a thing I have to get rid of ... so it's generally easy and cheaper to simply not have it in the first place.

And of course, not having those things means I have more money for the things that do make me happy. It's all a win in the end

[jimbouk]

Essentially, I've hit a point where I see things as more of a burden than a goal. I still have a bit of acquisition desire - there's a certain sense of satisfaction in having the ability to get something you "want" - but if a thing isn't going to meaningfully improve my life in some way, I now know that it will eventually become a thing I have to get rid of ... so it's generally easy and cheaper to simply not have it in the first place.

I can understand this. Got a new telly and the old one is gathering dust on the bedroom wall, extra computer plugged in once every other month. I'd like better nicer things but we have enough of most things and most things work well enough. We're waiting patiently for our microwave to die as we've got a red theme going on in the kitchen with a red kettle and toaster to match the tiles, damn thing just keeps hanging in there!

[DanceswithUnix]

Lots of things ringing true for me here.

I got my Oculus when it dropped to £399, but wasn't too gutted when it dropped another £50 not long after as I had had good use out of it in the mean time.

I would probably buy a Vega 56 if they were available at the original £399 RRP. My current card isn't really up to VR standards, and if a 580 is going to cost me nearly £300 I would rather get the Vega except those prices have gone mental. If it wasn't for the VR headset I wouldn't be looking at any of these near £400 GPUs, if my graphics card died tomorrow forcing my hand I could see me going back to Nvidia with a 1070 or 1080, but I am used to AMD's Linux support now and don't want to go back to closed source drivers.
I won't upgrade to Ryzen because of DDR4 prices.
The cost of next year's family holiday that the wife has booked dwarfs the cost of all these things though.