Dell to Dramatically Reduce Rebates and Discounts

[Audioholics]

<A href="http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/Dellreducesrebatesdiscounts.php"><IMG style="WIDTH: 102px; HEIGHT: 100px" alt=[Delllogo1] hspace=10 src="http://www.audioholics.com/news/thumbs/Delllogo1_th.gif" align=left border=0></A>Dell issued a special press conference call today to discuss their recent major pricing initiatives designed to improve and simplify pricing structures for consumers and small businesses. In August Dell will begin a 12-18 month long process to simplify its pricing structure. Dell will reduce (perhaps eventually eliminate) the use of mail-in rebates for Small Business and Consumers. There will also be a 70% reduction in the number of promotions and Dell will reduce the number of special discounts by 80%. Notebooks and TVs will begin having the changes take place as early as August with the Dimension line following later this year. Overall, Del lpredicts this will take 12-18 months to complete the full changes.

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[mustang_steve]

I've heard abuot this for a while.

It seems Dell has gotten a reputation as a "cheap" PC maker due to all the discounts and special offers they keep pulling. So they decided to stop doing that, and to just make things simpler, and see if they can get their name to be considered a "quality" brand, like IBM is for laptops.

Personally, I find Dell to be a good PC maker. I have three of their laptops, and all of them are pretty reliable units for their age (two are 8 years old, and one is 6 years old)

 

[patnshan]

This is too bad, I like the promotions. It penalizes people who are too stupid or lazy to do a google search for "dell coupon codes" and rewards those of us who do.
I am about to get an $1100 laptop for $750! And yes, it is an $1100 laptop. HP and toshiba equivalents cannot come close to the price.

Pat

 

[ned]

They need a boost on their stock price.

 

[furrycute]

Has anyone actually spent some serious time looking at these so called Dell "deals?" I have, and let me tell you, it doesn't matter what kind of "deals" you think you might have found, you eventually end up paying about the same price as the guy that found that special "deal" the week after, and that other next guy who found another special "deal" two weeks later.

So all these coupons, discounts, savings, are all really marketing gimmicks, to get potential customers excited about purchasing Dell branded computers. I personally loathe this kind of marketing gimmick.

 

[hemiram]

It may be a "gimmick", but a year ago, I bought a near top of the line laptop, for about $750 cheaper (for an identically equipped model with the same warranty) than any known PC maker I could find. Couldn't beat it, so I took it. It's by far the most stable machine I have ever used and has been nearly flawless. The 6 months same as cash deal didn't hurt either!

I'm gonna miss those coupons when it's time for another new one..

 

[patnshan]

Has anyone actually spent some serious time looking at these so called Dell "deals?" I have, and let me tell you, it doesn't matter what kind of "deals" you think you might have found, you eventually end up paying about the same price as the guy that found that special "deal" the week after, and that other next guy who found another special "deal" two weeks later.

So all these coupons, discounts, savings, are all really marketing gimmicks, to get potential customers excited about purchasing Dell branded computers. I personally loathe this kind of marketing gimmick.

Marketing gimmicks or not, that laptop is $400 more expensive now.

Pat

 

[MBauer]

If it lasts

Yesterday after reading the first post, I jumped over to the Costco site to see if the Dell 24" LCD monitor price had changed from 799 (it hadn't). Right on the Costco home page was the big sale on Dell equipment, made me smile.

I think what Dell is going to do temporailty is take advantage of their position with Intel to sell the hell out of the new Conroe chips, the core 2 Extreme and Core 2. Dell never sold AMD chips for the desktop or laptop and now that the new microproccesors are out I think they will take advantage of the Intel connection and be the key supplier in the desktop space of what promises to be a real hot selling (and cool running) chip. Guess is Intel will reward Dell with lots of hard to get chips and give them a key competitive position.

If sales slip later, I think you may see more promotions and sales, as before - Just my guess of course