The Most Rediculous Prices!

[TheGreatSatan]

Office Depot has started to offer home computer services (Like Geek Squad), and here's their insane prices!!

For instance. Go to the customer's home, pull the computer out of the box. Plug in the monitor, mouse, keyboard, power cord. Install up to 3 devices and connect computers to a home network.

Cost: $299!!

Do you have any examples of rediculous pricing?

[HackSore]

At the PC World near me, they quote on their price board "Home network installation - £499"

for that price, i can only assume they send a scantily clad playboy model round to your house wearing a cat6 bikini and holstering crimping tools on her thighs to set up your home network!

[Omega]

Kind of reminds me...

On the road to the hospital in Sacramento, there's a store called "Stupid Prices". I always get a laugh when I pass it.

[Zephik]

for that price, i can only assume they send a scantily clad playboy model round to your house wearing a cat6 bikini and holstering crimping tools on her thighs to set up your home network!

:eek: +rep for the best mental image I've ever had... lol

Meh, people have to make a living somehow. If they did it more often, the price would probably be lower. But because they probably don't do it all that often, the price has to be high otherwise they wouldn't be making ends meet.

Tech is a strange and confusing thing to associate business with sometimes. People always tell me that I'm going to be a millionaire someday because I "know so much about computers". I just laugh and tell them that I highly doubt it and when all is said and done, I know practically nothing. :sigh: although I secretly wish computers were more confusing and difficult than what they really are, maybe then I actually would be semi-wealthy.

[TheGreatSatan]

Office Depot, in the store.....

.....$13 for a can of compressed air!! A can that's double the size at Walmart is $6!

[TheGreatSatan]

Best Buy. A 6 foot USB cable for a printer is $35!!

Walmart. A 10 foot cable is $8

[Omega]

HSC Electronics Corp, 2x21 LCD displays are 99 cents.

=p

[NightrainSrt4]

Best Buy. A 6 foot USB cable for a printer is $35!!

Walmart. A 10 foot cable is $8

And those same cables from Best Buy I used to get for... ... ... ~$1.39

Accessories is where they have the markup because a lot of pc's and laptops when they went on sale we lost money. Hence the pressure to buy other crap when you buy a computer there.

It was a total letdown to get people that wanted absolutely nothing with the computer. The managers made it a nightmare for you. What can you do...

Although I was a pretty good salesman. Just have to get to know your customer. But some people you just can't do that with. In/out is all they want. This was mostly with people from other countries as the communication barrier made it impossible to up sell. 299$ Is the best lol. Has 512mb ram and hardly runs vista but that dont matter...299! Woot!!! lmao

[TheGreatSatan]

This was mostly with people from other countries as the communication barrier made it impossible to up sell. 299$ Is the best lol. Has 512mb ram and hardly runs vista but that dont matter...299! Woot!!! lmao

I totally agree. I've dealt with people who see that we have a bundle deal for $549 after rebate. It had Athlon X2 6000+, 3GB RAM, 500GB HD with a 19 inch LCD. Walmart has a bundle with a single core proc, 1GB RAM and 1 250GB HD, and 19 inch LCD for $299. But Walmart is a great deal and our bundle is a ripoff! The average user just doesn't get it no matter what you tell them.....:devious:

[NightrainSrt4]

I hear you man. It used to kill me.

I had one guy who wanted a P4 laptop that was atleast 3.0Ghz, with "great" battery life(LMAO). Did not want to look at the Core2Duo's at all. I told him that we hadn't even carried P4 laptops in ages and he demanded to speak to the manager to confirm this.

Boy o' boy was he pissed that we didn't have P4 laptops anymore. As he left he called me a "f%^&ing retard" for thinking a core2 could be faster and more battery friendly then a P4 desktop chip in a laptop (as thats what he wanted). Never saw the guy after that.

[xRyokenx]

What you guys have said is yet another reason why I'm not going into IT, lol.

I upgraded to a C2D with some good DDR2 800 RAM in dual channel with a SATA 300mb/s HDD and this thing is a beast! It boots XP up pretty fast and runs great. I am never again buying cheap crap. Hell, I never liked buying cheap crap. Everyone skimps on crap so much these days it's sad. That's why places like Walmart are still in business... they sell cheap crap that barely performs and breaks after a few months and in reality, your $0.12 savings is cancelled out by having to replace that crap every so often. My current rig should last me a while now... and I want it to.

In other news, the wages:prices ratio is ridiculous. Hmm... $6.50 an hour busting my ass off at a fast food joint just to pay $100 per month for car insurance, $3.00+ for gas per gallon, etc. is pathetic. It is tough to have money these days... and college is starting to cost too much too. I don't want to have to pay off loans for 20+ years of my life. That's crap. Not to go too much further OT but is it just me or is community college just like high school that you have to pay to go to? Such crap, lol.

[armadilloben]

cat6 bikini
thats.... thats.................. awesome!!!!

[crenn]

USA - $14.3 Trillion ;) :D

Example of wacky prices?
DSE, 7600GT $369
MSY, 8600GT $169

[simon275]

Yeah DSE is stupid like that. Msy though is so cheap and I never shop there as they never have stock. Auspcmarket ftw!

[crenn]

The MSY I go to... the majority of the time, they have the stuff I want, but when they're out... they're basically out for a month.

I was there yesterday picking up a new fan and a couple of SATA cables. MSY prices are great, the availability is an issue though.

[Airbozo]

Insane ripoff:

SGI charges almost $5k to show up, plug in a laptop to one of my supercomputers enter a password, enter a serial number and leave. Just so I can have a 256 processor system instead of 2 128's... Took us 2 days to get them out here and 15 minutes to do the work.

OK so that was not very representative of the real world...

How about this;
Dell charges $35 to send us a floppy drive for a system (not including shipping). We can purchase one through our local fry's for $6. Through our channels? $4.

[Ichbin]

I charge by the hour for my comp services.

I just figure that my knowledge is worth $40 an hour. So if hooking up a computer takes half an hour, 20 bucks (Seems fair) but if someone wants me to set up a home network, youd be looking at an hour or to so 40-80 bucks.

More things like this should be done hourly not by "Job"

[Omega]

I charge by the hour for my comp services.

I just figure that my knowledge is worth $40 an hour. So if hooking up a computer takes half an hour, 20 bucks (Seems fair) but if someone wants me to set up a home network, youd be looking at an hour or to so 40-80 bucks.

More things like this should be done hourly not by "Job"

I work hourly at $15/hr for my mom's company and $50/hr freelance. Works pretty well for me. I do, however, give discounts if the job's not hard. Reinstalling windows? I would charge $100 but it's basically sitting at a screen for two hours, so I only charge $30.

[Airbozo]

I charge by the hour for my comp services.

I just figure that my knowledge is worth $40 an hour. So if hooking up a computer takes half an hour, 20 bucks (Seems fair) but if someone wants me to set up a home network, youd be looking at an hour or to so 40-80 bucks.

More things like this should be done hourly not by "Job"

It varies for me too. I charge for the job in most cases, but by the hour for fancy things.

Example; (not going to post prices for many reasons) I have 2 clients that I go to once a week to prepare meals for their family for one week. One client I charge $XXX, and they purchase the food based on our weekly meeting and menu planning. I charge extra (by the hour) if they want me to do the shopping (and my time is not cheap to discourage them asking me to shop). I charge my second client more than the first not because it takes me longer to cook, but I have to do more research for them due to specific dietary restrictions. When I do "special" dinners (usually something small and romantic) I charge a base rate and then by the hour (for my services as a chef and to hire a waiter/waitress for the event). My first customer kept getting lazy/forgetful (take your pick) and would not have the shopping done when I got there, so I started charging them a "fine" for wasting my time. They asked me to shop for them 3 or 4 times (usually only in an emergency) and when they actually realize what I was charging them per hour to shop, they suddenly became "less" forgetful. (I _always_ inform them of the cost up front so there are never any real surprises)

I do similar pricing for computer related work. I charge a base rate for building a computer. I charge an hourly rate for troubleshooting and other support services. When I really do not want to perform a certain task I charge some exorbitant amount of money per hour with a minimum fee.

[xmastree]

More things like this should be done hourly not by "Job"It's a moot point. I used to repair CB radios way back when they were popular, and I became pretty good at fixing the 90% of them with the usual faults.
I was chatting to a friend, who repaired TVs for a living, about how I felt awkward charging much for something which took me a few minutes sometimes.

He said, "they're not paying for what you do, but for what you know and for all the time it's taken you to learn those skills"

He had a point.


Non computer-literate people think we're 'brilliant' when we do something like installing a printer in a couple of minutes. Just because we know exactly what to click.
I was looking at a computer for a friend of my dad a while back. Can't remember what was wrong with it now, but I nailed it in about 30 minutes, cleaned a lot of crap of the CPU heatsink, installed an up to date virus scanner (they were still using the expired norton which came with it) etc. etc.
I even signed them up with a yahoo messenger account so they could chat with relatives abroad.
I was there about two hours in all, and as I was out of work I accepted the £20 he offered. I wasn't going to charge at all, as it was a friend.

Next time he saw my dad he said "where did Chris learn all that? He's amazing!" http://bestsmileys.com/blushing/3.gif

[Airbozo]

............

He said, "they're not paying for what you do, but for what you know and for all the time it's taken you to learn those skills"

............. http://bestsmileys.com/blushing/3.gif

This reminds me of a great story I heard while working at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach;

A senior engineer retired from Douglas Aircraft after 30+ years of service. He got a call one day to see if he could come in to fix a system that no one knew anything about. He came in, found a problem with one of the Co-processor boards, put a red arrow on it and a note saying "Change this part". He submitted his invoice to the company for $10000. for "Troubleshooting computer related board". He got a call several days later asking him why it was so expensive and that purchasing need a detailed invoice before they would pay it. He re-submitted his invoice with the following corrections;

"One red arrow - $1.00"
"Knowing where to put that red arrow - $9,999"

They paid.

[Omega]

This reminds me of a great story I heard while working at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach;

A senior engineer retired from Douglas Aircraft after 30+ years of service. He got a call one day to see if he could come in to fix a system that no one knew anything about. He came in, found a problem with one of the Co-processor boards, put a red arrow on it and a note saying "Change this part". He submitted his invoice to the company for $10000. for "Troubleshooting computer related board". He got a call several days later asking him why it was so expensive and that purchasing need a detailed invoice before they would pay it. He re-submitted his invoice with the following corrections;

"One red arrow - $1.00"
"Knowing where to put that red arrow - $9,999"

They paid.

That is an amazing story and if I ever, and I mean EVER get asked for justification for my prices once I'm a mechanic, I'm using that reason. Education ain't free.

+rep

[xmastree]

That is an amazing story and if I ever, and I mean EVER get asked for justification for my prices once I'm a mechanic, I'm using that reason.
Heh. I used it today, pretty much. :banana:

I work as a service engineer for fire alarms and similar stuff. One of out customers called in a fault, I went to look into it. Basically, a smoke detector was showing on the panel up as missing. It was a hotel, the detector was there so I took it out, put it back and reset the panel. The fault cleared, and probably would have done if I had just reset it in the first place.

Anyway, normally I would have filled in the paperwork and left, but this customer (a major hotel/restaurant chain) have their own way of doing things, which involves putting down the cost of the job, for which I had to call the office.

Having done this, we (me and the receptionist) were talking about how expensive it was (more than the cost of a room for the night) just for pressing a button. I replied along the lines of "you're not paying for me to press the button, but for knowing which button to press"

[Ticien]

This is giving me quite a bit of insight...Recently I built a couple basic PCs for friends and family, they paid for the parts and all i asked to be paid was a small donation of whatever they figured my work was worth. I got a free repair on my car for one, nothing for a second, and way too much money for the third. I never really expected anything from any of the three as I really enjoy putting together the PCs and it didnt feel like "work" per se. But word has gotten around and im starting to get all kinds of requests for PCs, everyone wants to know how much I charge to build them and until now I had no idea what to tell them.

(Crazy prices story: When building a PC for one of my co-workers, I mentioned the "geek squad" and she told me about how they charged her in the neighborhood of $150 to install a floppy drive at her home. She wasnt very happy after I showed her how they did it in less than 5 minutes. My version of the diagnostic test they charged her for? I put a disk in it.)

[TheGreatSatan]

When building a PC for one of my co-workers, I mentioned the "geek squad" and she told me about how they charged her in the neighborhood of $150 to install a floppy drive at her home. She wasnt very happy after I showed her how they did it in less than 5 minutes. My version of the diagnostic test they charged her for? I put a disk in it.)

I worked on my neighbors PC for hours and didn't charge him a cent. So be careful with who you help. Also, as a general rule, if I know a repair will be $200 or more, I always recommend a new PC instead.

[Airbozo]

I worked on my neighbors PC for hours and didn't charge him a cent. So be careful with who you help. Also, as a general rule, if I know a repair will be $200 or more, I always recommend a new PC instead.

...and you have to be able to read people. Some people I will not charge anything knowing that they appreciate the system and I will be paid in the end. Even if it is just a real nice dinner. Others I will charge a flat rate of $100, knowing that if something does go wrong they will have the intelligence to do basic trouble shooting themselves and not call me every time they get the BSOD while trying to run some piece of software never meant for their system. For the rest of the lot? I kindly suggest to them "Buy a Dell". I am too busy to deal with the "how come my HD light is flashing" type of questions...

[TheGreatSatan]

Dell?

Why have them get another PC that doesn't work?

[Aero]

Dell?

Why have them get another PC that doesn't work?

Isn't having 2 crappy PC's the same thing as having one good PC?

[Airbozo]

Dell?

Why have them get another PC that doesn't work?


hehe IMO, any PC these people get will not work. I just don't want to be on the phone for hours trying to figure out why the system does not work, when it is PEBKAC... (like one of my co-workers who feels he must muck with everything in the computer then ask me why it does not work (the cable fits both ways, it must not matter). Good thing he bought a dell, now he is their problem not mine)