Shopping Discussion

Appliance Price Fixing?

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  • Dec 26th, 2017 11:24 pm
Deal Addict
Jan 10, 2007
1748 posts
726 upvotes
Abbotsford

Appliance Price Fixing?

Looking at gas and induction ranges. I've compared all the boxing day deals for HD, Lowes, BB, Brick. It appears that 99% of them are the same price - all the ones on sale are pretty much on sale everywhere, and the net sale numbers are the same. Anyone else find this when shopping for other appliances in the past?

Any recommendation for places to look on Van Island? Canadianappliances only delivers to ON
6 replies
Sr. Member
Feb 5, 2007
889 posts
473 upvotes
Mississauga
When i was buying a washer, i recall them looking up my unit at the supplier sheet. There was a column for supplier purchase price and one for marked up price. Thus every store sold them at roughly the same
Deal Expert
User avatar
Aug 18, 2005
21223 posts
5939 upvotes
Burlington-Hamilton
More like appliances have virtually no profit margin and they are made by very few manufacturers, so all retailers have virtually the same wholesale cost.

This is why they push the service plans and extended warranties so hard. That's where the majority of the profit is located.
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Deal Expert
Feb 7, 2017
27765 posts
27805 upvotes
Eastern Ontario
Jucius Maximus wrote: More like appliances have virtually no profit margin and they are made by very few manufacturers, so all retailers have virtually the same wholesale cost.

This is why they push the service plans and extended warranties so hard. That's where the majority of the profit is located.
This

Just because an item is pretty much the same price everywhere, does not necessarily mean there is price fixing.

Appliances are like cars (and electronics) new models come out on a regularly scheduled cycle... people pay top dollar to get the newest model, but that does not automatically make past models obsolete

You want more bells & whisles, newest features... on your car, or fridge you pay more. Cause a lot of money goes into the Research & Development / Design of such stuff to set this years model apart from last years... they tend to recoup those costs for several years down the road.

The Ladas of Fridges exist too... just that unless it is a designated beer fridge few people want that basic design any longer...
Deal Addict
Dec 15, 2013
1218 posts
601 upvotes
North of Toronto
Sales are usually made up of 3 things.

1) Store lowers it's mark up and puts it on sale.

2) Manufacturer gives the store a rebate to sell the product at a lower price.

3) Manufacturer offers a rebate and store lowers it's mark up to have a lower price.

Have you not noticed that most stores that sell electonics often sell the same things at the same prices on boxing day and black friday?

Example: look at videogame prices, tv prices along the same manufacturer, etc.
Newbie
May 27, 2012
1 posts
Same thing is happening with large screen TVs. All prices are virtually the same. Collusion.
Deal Expert
Feb 7, 2017
27765 posts
27805 upvotes
Eastern Ontario
It’s not just appliances, electronics & tech

It is everything... to everything there is a season, blah, blah, blah

Sales come in cycles

Even tracking groceries you’ll see that in either the same week / month that Stores will feature a particular product on special

Because the Manufacturer has done something to promote / push it thru to the Store on Promo so they’ll feature it thru better self space, Flyer ad, or discount etc

It’s not price fixing per se, just how Manfacturers ensure that their widget is getting full blown exposure in the marketplace

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