I had some free time while dinner was being prepared. So I browsed the cable channels. I saw a channel that had some Dell computer deals. It turns out this was the QVC channel that was reselling Dell computers.The deal they were offering was a Dell Inspiron for $999 plus $30 shipping. The actual computer would not ship until October 20th. They were really hyping that it had 4G of RAM. There were also a lot of colors available. My own question was why should I go through QVC instead of heading to the Dell website directly.
After dinner I did go directly to the Dell website. They have specials as well. Dell also provides free shipping. They have the same colors available as QVC. My price online turned out to be $848 after the discounts were applied. This even included a better processor than QVC
I ask myself how exactly does QVC make money. They probably get a better rate than me. However they have additional costs such as the sales guy I was watching, as well as advertising costs to broadcast their show on cable.
Perhaps a more important question to the consumer is why should they go with QVC? Maybe a user does not want to go directly to Dell. For example, you might not have current Internet access. Then you could not check out the Dell website. Or maybe QVC was looking for impulse buyers that do not spend the time to compare the Dell website deals.
To tell you the truth, if I had a lot of money, I would not mind going with QVC. That would require me to be rich. Right now I am not. So I figure I am going to be buying my next laptop from Dell. However this was a very interesting offer from QVC.
