EggXpert

You know I love you Newegg but what is with the "check price in cart" trend I've seen on items all over the site.

Personally, I hate it. I have to open up a new window each time I want to price and item. When I'm looking at products I want to buy usually I pull up a list of similar products and compare stats against price. Well it makes it so much harder to do this when 6 out of 10 items say "see price in cart". It makes me want to remove these items from the search!

Now, I have a feeling this is simply a gimmic put forth by some, obviously new, ill-informed marketing "expert" that believes if you trick someone into adding something to their cart to see the price....well then they'll have to buy it. Well it's ain't so....and whats worse, the prices in the cart are not much better than other items with the prices clearly listed. I mean if it was like $50 cheaper I could see but for $10 or a Mail-In-Rebate sorry but it ain't worth making such a to-do over.

I'm a marketing professional myself and although I don't claim to know everything or even close to it, I do know that people shopping for stuff like to have prices clearly marked and know exactly what they're buying. If you make them jump through hoops for either one of these things then it not only makes it harder on them but also makes them feel like something is up with either the item or the pricing.

But maybe it's just me.

 

agreed, I also think it is a bit of a nuisance. Although I can understand the logic that putting the item in the customers cart gets them that much closer to purchasing the product. There most be some sort of study linked to its effectiveness as I have seen this on many sites.

I do agree with you, and I also find this very frustrating. But I have seen this in other places; Newegg is not the only one employing this technique. Circuit City also uses this technique quite often, and my memory is vague but I also believe Best Buy does it also. Granted I don't often buy computer parts from these places because Newegg usually has these products at a better price, but from a customers standpoint this is frustrating, frankly if I just see the price and its a decent amount lower, I'm more likely to buy it if its a product I'm looking for. Theres more shock to it when it just hits you in the face, and I am in no way a marketing professional, I'm actually an IT Computer Technician, soon to be a Solutions Development Specialist. But I am a customer and I do buy products online very often.

Kardon:

agreed, I also think it is a bit of a nuisance. Although I can understand the logic that putting the item in the customers cart gets them that much closer to purchasing the product. There most be some sort of study linked to its effectiveness as I have seen this on many sites.

Oh yeah, it's all over the web, but it just another one of the laundry list of reasons that I do my shopping at Newegg.com.

And now I see they're starting to do it.

It's neither new nor a gimmick.  Many retailers do this when their price is lower than the MSRP, so that the manufacturers don't get in a tizzy.

Cheers,

Stefan 

Pardon my ignorance on the matter but why does the manufacturer care what newegg sells their stock for?

The manufacturer gets the money for the item regardless. If newegg is selling it for less profit than others so what...that's their business.

Besides many of their items that are clearly marked are lower than MSRP? how does that make sense?

Here is a very good read on this issue!

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Deals mainly with Nvidia but it does a lot of explaining.

I don't know about the rest of you, but if I use the Price in Cart thing, it just pops up a window with buttons to click. I just click the "x" in the corner and it doesn't go in my cart. *shrug It used to just pop up a window before, I think that window now just gives you a better choice for adding it, if you want to. If you don't want it in the cart, click the "x"

TVVCR6:

Here is a very good read on this issue!

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Deals mainly with Nvidia but it does a lot of explaining.

Thanks this clears a lot up. And makes me angry at the same time

here's a quote from the article:

When you make it more difficult for people to make purchasing decisions on price, you can bet that less people will make a purchase based on price. Logically if that is not happening customers should be flocking to the brands they are familiar with. According to our sources, sales volumes of NVIDIA partners “authorized” to sell in North America have gone up since UMAP’s implementation.

Sounds like a load of bull to me. But hey, I have the power, I just bought a 4850 and plan on getting a 4870 in a couple weeks. Good luck with your shinanigans Nvidia hope it works out for you.

I use to actually use those bar code scanners to see a prices on things at walmart/toys r us/ etc. 

But now, I don't bother, no price, I don't buy.  If the store wont tell me how much it costs before I go to buy somehting, or have it labled, I wont bother buying it.

So don't even bother with the price in cart thing, skip over those items, they are not any cheaper.
 

I wish I could find the article, but there was a study done about why people placed items in their carts and never purchased.  Now this was for items clearly marked but never actually purchased.  I'm wondering if maybe this technique is an additional tactic to get more shoppers to actually make their purchase once they get to the cart and realize that the price is actually lower (hopefully, a better deal than they though in the first place) and will get them to purchase said cart? 

Sorry if I sound a little geeky in thinking this through, but I love statistics and would really like to know if this 'ploy' actually does increase the take rate of carts and if so, what was the expected increase percentage and what the actual increase in take rates really is?

If it were something cheap that dosen't really have a lot of specs and options I guess I wouldn't care so much, but the fact that these are computer components where even the simplest item can have 10 stats to consider for the price it's just a pain in the neck.

Not to mention you've got to deal with the rebate c**p already, now we have to put something in the cart just to see the price. Even the "compare" feature dosen't work as well because you can't "compare" the item without opening another window for certain items.

I'm probably being petty but really how many people out there just buy something because it's "already in their cart"?

lol, next thing you know they'll be putting little catapults on the isles at BestBuy to try and lobb things in my cart cuz aparently I'm too lazy to pass up a deal once it's in my cart.