Somewhere between the turkey and the eggnog, someone in your family is almost certainly going to mention their plans to pick up a cheap tablet or TV set. Or maybe someone will bring up the nearest mall electronics store’s “amazing” deals on HDMI cables. The holidays are no time to slack on the year-round battle that comes from being more tech-savvy than other members of the family; in fact, the end of the year requires extra vigilance to stop those nearest and dearest to you from letting the consumer electronics manufacturer/retailer train take them for an unholy ride. Without our help, family members can all too easily spend too much of their money on bad, outdated, or overpriced products.
But with so many casual consumers in one place planning so much shopping, the battle you face is prodigious. Reasoning with your family about money and buying products may be only a slightly better topic than the latest political issues, but darned if we don’t all try to help them understand, despite knowing how easy both fights are to lose.
Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—the best strategy is to get them to spend a little more money on a far superior product or experience. This certainly isn’t feasible for everyone, but one of the reasons so many people revile technology is that they just don't know what to look for when comparing and picking out gadgets. A frustrating time spent shopping then ends with a crappy gadget, which results in unhappiness all around. It doesn't have to be that way, though—some care in the buying will lead to much joy in the owning. It's up to you to help your families find a good balance and help quality electronics find a good home. Below are some helpful tips you can use to try to help your family see the consumer electronics light.
The lie of the doorbuster
Uncle Frank steps up to you, waves sales fliers in your face, and tells you he saw an Insignia TV on sale for 60 percent off as a doorbuster in Best Buy’s Black Friday sale flier.
Explain to Frank that there are already probably more people camped out in front of the Best Buy than there are doorbuster TVs available. Meanwhile, Frank is at home, hanging out and eating turkey. He's happier here!
Stock for these sales is normally incredibly low, and stores hope that folks who fail to get one of these TVs—which is most people who show up for them—will reach for another (nearly normally priced) TV on the shelf rather than leave empty-handed. TVs on sale right now are likely extra stock from the round of products released in the spring, anyway; unless Frank is hard up for a TV, there will be great sales around February, too.
Not to be denied, Frank then decides he wants the cheap, off-brand TV in the flyer that is absurdly low-priced. Frank doesn't seem to know that this particular TV is always absurdly low-priced, because it sucks.
Here's what you say: “Frank, take a walk with me. Let’s look at these online reviews. People say the power fails, the ports stop working, and sometimes the TV randomly displays a blank blue screen. I know you hate all your electronics, Frank, but do you ever think maybe it’s just the kind of electronics you’re buying? Give yourself a chance and get something that’s not already widely known to be a piece of garbage.”
The cheap crap trap
Frank has been mollified, but then you catch sight of Aunt Irma, who has her eye on a sub-$100 tablet.
Ask Irma if she’s researched the tablet at all to see if people who have bought it like it (presumably not). Show her all of the bad online reviews and tell her, “Aunt Irma, I love tablets, and I want you to love tablets. Tablets can be magical things. But not all tablets are created equal, and I’m afraid this tablet will make you hate all tablets and just give up on them. What about a Kindle Fire or a Nexus 7? People love those things, they’re not too expensive, and you don’t even have to leave your house to get one.”
Literally never ever buy cables in a store
Irma is nodding her head with new wisdom, but now cousin Steve starts talking about all of the cheap cables he’s going to get his hands on at the local big box store.
Quickly step over to Steve and say these words: “Cousin Steve, you know there are cheap cables available all year round, right? The ones you’re looking to buy are just insanely overpriced most of the year—they're fat, high-margin items for the big box stores. You can get any kind of cables online for a few dollars. What's that you say? The ones in the flier are high-speed? Well, fear not: most modern HDMI cables are high-speed, Steve.”
Name-brand nonsense
After blowing Steve's mind with the normally priced cables at Monoprice, little brother Tyler announces that he is about to spend several weeks’ savings from his grocery store job to buy a name-brand Bluetooth speaker because it's the only way he will be seen as cool by his friends, who are teenagers.
Head off disaster by telling Tyler something like this: “Tyler, I know that little pill-shaped speaker has been in seemingly every pop music video for the last year, and I know it’s cute and all, but you can get a little more bang—and boom, ha! (Tyler, I swear I'm still a cool adult)—if you do some comparison shopping. There are other, better sound systems that are actually cheaper. Yes, even cheaper than the sale price in the store! Check out some online reviews. You could use the money you save to buy music to play on it. Yes, buy. Seriously, Tyler, you have to stop downloading music—it’s illegal. What if I get you a streaming subscription for Christmas? Tyler where are you going? Don’t you dare install Transmission on my computer, Tyler!”
Fake sale, bro!
Even as Tyler is contemplating where you really are on the coolness continuum, it becomes apparent that brother-in-law Mike wants to buy a laptop—one that looks like it's on sale for a few hundred dollars off.
You know better, though. Caution Mike that some “original prices” are completely made up for the sake of making a sale price sound cheap. In fact, if you try to investigate some of the products you see in a Black Friday flyer, many of them didn’t exist more than a few weeks ago. Legally, companies do have to list those items at those original prices for a while, but many products are created specifically to sell on occasions like Black Friday.
Take for instance the computer Mike wants: a 15-inch Lenovo computer for $399 at Best Buy, which Best Buy originally priced at $649. If we search for the model number online, Best Buy appears to be the only source of this computer.
But if we break that model number down to its base (G500) we can find an identical computer already for sale at Newegg for $499. The only difference is that computer comes out of the box running Windows 8, but Windows 8.1 is a free upgrade. And unlike the Best Buy one, it’s not at risk of simply not being on the shelf when you come for it.
Calling in backup for yourself
You could exhaust yourself debunking every electronics deal your family goes after, but education is your best weapon. A few basic principles go a long way: namely, doing your Internet research and comparison shopping on online outlets, where there are often identical products for similar prices. Below are a few good references for information and comparison:
- Newegg, for cheap computer components
- Monoprice, for cheap cables and networking items
- Nextag, for viewing price histories of various products
- Amazon, slightly more of a crapshoot for electronics, but it can have good sales
- The Wirecutter, for readable guides and clear-cut picks for the best of different product categories
If nothing else, appeal to emotion: instead of waking up in the dark, waiting in the cold, and trying not to rain blows upon your fellow shoppers, wouldn’t it be so much nicer to wake up early Black Friday, get some Thanksgiving leftovers and eggnog, and then crawl back to bed and buy things online? Now, go forth and espouse knowledge—save your family from the hell of ignorant holiday shopping!
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