Finding Holiday Discounts on iPods?

jeffy124 asks: "I was hoping to get an Apple iPod for Christmas. Alas, it's too expensive and out of the budget. So I'm forced into purchasing it for myself. Hoping to cash in on a holiday season bargain, I've been keeping my eye on the sales circulars that come in the newspaper. I've seen plenty of discounts for MP3 players of all kinds (Rio's, Dell's new HD-based player, etc), and the iPod has also shown up. Christmas does not yet seem very merry to me. They're always at the regular $299/399/499 price, never at a discount of any sort. You read that right, it's 'for sale' at the *regular* price. Stores guilty of this include Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and CompUSA. Why do stores do this? How often? And does anyone know why Apple has been singled out while their competition has gotten their products discounted? Anyone know who *is* granting discounts on iPods this holiday season?"

"The other day came in the mail a 10% off coupon for various items at Best Buy, including 'MP3 Players' as indicated on the front of slip. Hoping this was how I was gonna get that discount, I set aside time this weekend to drive to Delaware in order to skip out on my local state sales tax too. I turned the coupon over, and in the legal disclaimer was the phrase 'Excludes Apple iPod Players.' Needless to say, a Merry Christmas is still aways off."

Just wait...

[Cyno01]

Until they day after you buy one, Apple will annouce price breaks of $50-$100 and new larger capacity models.

Check coupon sites...

[Anonymous Coward]

Techbargains.com has a coupon for apple 10% off I think. You can also look for other generic coupons at similar sites. As for a good deal, all you need is someone else's credit card.

They don't need to discount...?

[frenetic3]

Wild conjecture, but maybe it's just because they have such a strong brand name (kid wants an *iPod* for xmas, not an mp3 player) that they feel that their product is unique and that sales wouldn't drastically increase if they cut their prices (or conversely sales wouldn't drop that much if they kept prices high, because their customers don't see the cheapo competing mp3 players as valid substitutes for an iPod.)

Kinda like toy fads -- what kid would want to accept a cheap knockoff "Fondle Me Herbert" doll when all their little pals have "Tickle Me Elmos"? :P

-fren

Free iPod...

[supertbone]

if you buy a VW bug

Ipod SNOBBERY

[Anonymous Coward]

you're the coolest there is in town
pumping ipod while jogging around
elitest snob with 40gig of sound
spent five hundred just another dumb snook
sold your soul to the biggest corporations on the books
micro-soft starbucks mcdonalds list them down
elitest snob with 40gig of sound
drink that coffee drink it down

Origin of the word Sale

[beacher]

Sale (in French) means dirty. The French offered a discount on dirty (dent and ding) items and then the English picked up on the word. Or it's just a funny anecdote I just pulled out of my ass

How big a discount do you want?

[mschuyler]

Reminds me of my neighbor, Richard Abrams, who is in the paper distribution business (which is huge). He owns West Coast Paper company. His big, yellow trucks ply I-5 all ove rthe place. I was buying for my org, so I asked Dick for a discount.

"Sure!" he said. "How big a discount do you want?"

"You mean I get to choose?" I asked. Wow! Nice neighbor. It must pay to know people in high places.

"Sure!" he said again. "You tell me what discount you want, then I'll tell you the retail price!"

Guess there's a reason he's still in business.

Re:Forget it, go for the Rio Karma

[BasilBrush]

To be the iPod killer, people would actually have top have heard of it...

Re:Before you buy an IPOD

[idsofmarch]

Please actually know something before you post. Wait, I'm sorry nevermind, everybody does it. Thanks for playing. And stop linking to dirtylittlesecret you bunch of ****ing morons.

Re:Has no one said the more likely?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the new Blink182 CD at best buy for 10 bucks, but rememberd I wanted the Christmas Story DVD, too. It was also on sale for $20, but I don't know how much they were losing on that.

Blink 182 and Christmas Story. Dude - You are the loser here.

Re:Just too suspicious of Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The frantic pace of technology improvements must make you one bitter mf.

Re:Shop at Best Buy

[Anonymous Coward]

Added in the 4-year Best Buy warranty for $40 to cover the battery and basically anything else that goes bad within 4 years.

HA HA HA SUCKER

Re: Finding Holiday Discounts on iPods?

[tdemark]

It's got replaceable batteries, and unlike the iPod, you don't have to remortgage your house to buy a replacement battery.

If you have to get a loan for $49 [ipodbattery.com], you probably shouldn't buy an iPod.

Or any MP3 player for that matter.

- Tony

Re:Supply and Demand

[moehoward]

It was modded up because I actually dared to fill in the "?" in Step 2 of the South Park econ running joke.

In my haste to post fast and early (the only known way to get modded up to a 4 or 5), I made several technical errors, including those of fact. Some were outright half truths and some was simply made up on the spot. Others were just damn lies. I stand by my humor, but not my analysis or spelling. The post was meant to be modded as +4 Funny, -2 Troll, and -1 Flaimbait for a total score of +2. Sometimes the moderators don't do as I plan. This is unfortunate. Your mileage may vary.

Send me your contact info and I'll get you a SHIFT key for Christmas. TIA.

Re:cheap iPods

[BasilBrush]

Think about it; what's the first thing to go when you REALLY need money?

The wife.

Re:Battery Replacement Now Cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

$99 freaking dollars for a battery? AND you still have to mail it to them with postage back and forth to get it changed? NOT ME!!! NEVER!!

No Apples, no Microsoft, no shaft up my...

The important thing to remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is that "it's" and "its" are two different words, and if you use the first word when you mean the second, well, then you don't know how to spell.

Get it from a friend who works at apple...

[rthille]

Well, not really. Had dinner with a friend at apple and he's like, "hey, you want any hardware?" And I said, "sure, how about an iPod?" "Oh, not an iPod, we can't make those fast enough."

Well, maybe I'll get a 15" powerbook instead.

You missed the point...

[Dascen]

Then buy it via Apple or the Apple store. They offer a 14-day price protection policy for just this very reason.

I think you missed the point. If you got the 14 day price protection, the price would drop on the 15th. Thats how it works.

Re:Two words: EDUCATION DISCOUNT

[DarkVader]

you know, there are such things as music degrees...

Re:One company can't "fix prices"...

[Simonetta]

Many interesting and relevent points made. Thank you for taking the time to write them.

However, I think that the term "dingleberry" is just a touch inappropriate. Perhaps "Grasshopper" would have the exact impact for a Slashdot rebuttal to a stanger.

Thank you,

Just wish hard...

[nicky_d]

I was contemplating buying an iPod when I got a backdated pay increment a couple of weeks ago. I sat looking at the Apple store page for twenty minutes or so, wondering if I should really go for the 40gb, when a new mail pinged into my inbox. It was a voucher from Apple for 20 off any purchase over 199. I took this to be divine intervention and ordered immediately. Now, I'm not suggesting you should pray for an iPod discount because, you know, that might be seen as slightly selfish. But I do suggest you think as hard as you can about buying one, and wait for Apple's serendipity dept. to pick up on it.

Re:One company can't "fix prices"...

[jtrascap]

"However, I think that the term "dingleberry" is just a touch inappropriate. Perhaps "Grasshopper" would have the exact impact for a Slashdot rebuttal to a stanger."

It would be too, were it not for the fact the guy posted under the name "dingleberry"

Then again, responding to a post without first reading it is TRUE slashdot. ;)

Sure - it all looks great coming out of the carton, but I've owned a Rio jukebox, or junkbox as I like to call it, and fell apart at every conceivable opportunity. Now, after 3 months of heavy daily use, my iPod is still as beautiful as new and rock-solid too.