Will Memory Card prices ever come down...........

Marc

Marc

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..........in the high street, or will they become exclusively online in the near future?

I ask because I've just bought 3 Sandisk Extreme III 4gb compact flash cards for £54 (£17.99 each, including delivery) from Play. The exact same cards in Jessops are £69.99 EACH + £3.99 delivery if you order them via their website! Are there actually people out there who will pay these prices?
 
I work in Maplin and our card prices are just stupid. £49.99 fir a 4gb SD! I paid £12.99 from my memory!

We don't tend to sell many of the higher capacity cards - anyone who has a real need for anything above 2gb has more sense than to buy from us in the first place! Even 2gb cards are "£19.99 and aren't exactly a well known brand!
 
They will never come down in price on the highstreet, soon all photography shops will lose out to decreasing web prices.
 
Obviously, the high street will never be able to beat the prices on the web, but there are some OK prices out there (and alot of retailers will often discount a memory card if you're making a larger hardware purchase). For example, Currys has there cheapest 1gb SD card @ £17.99, but if you did the Reserve and Collect option, this was reduced to £7.50 (OK, still a bit more expensive than the web, but not too far off and there's no waiting and it can go straight into your new camera). They also have bog standard 4gb (Sandisk Class 4) cards for £24.99.

The expense comes from the high percieved value of the premium cards (lets face it, the high street often only offer goods at MSRP), so Sandisk quoting £69.99 MSRP for a 4gb CF card is ridiculous when companies MUST be able to buy at them less £10 each in order to make a reasonable profit at £17.99.

ps I was also told that many high street chains only make about 50% profit on memory cards. OK, thats quite alot, but in real terms, that means that they probably pay more than £17.99 for the cards at cost.
 
I doubt the prices will ever drop in the high street as, along with extended warranties, it's probably where the shop makes most of its profit.
 
fabs said:
Are there actually people out there who will pay these prices?
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plenty!

I can't see the prices coming down much as this is where the stores make money. They aim to sell to the tourists who are desperate for a card and can't wait to order it online and also the innocent shopper. If my dad went and bought a camera and jessops said you need this memory card for £50 he wouldn't know it could be bought online for £15
 
jonnypb said:
If my dad went and bought a camera and jessops said you need this memory card for £50 he wouldn't know it could be bought online for £15
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Indeed, my dad wanted some inkjet cartridges and insisted on buying them from a high street retailer, despite me telling him that he could get them from 7 Day Shop for a third of the price!
 
But even the more respected retailers still over value cards, I bought a 40D kit on Saturday from a local supplier (well respected) and they placed a value of £30 for a 4GB card, and that was thier reason for not wanting to price match. They did in the end without the card. I already have in excess of 20GB in cards so not an issue for me.
 
Last Christmas I was looking for a Sandisk MP3 player. I'd spotted it on Play for about £80 but as I was in London for the day I thought I'd check out Tottenham Court Road.

The cheapest I could find it was £120 and when I told the shop manager I could get it for £40 cheaper inc postage he went ballistic.

But not at me, he was straight on the phone to his UK supplier asking how the **** he was meant to compete when the web retailers were selling goods cheaper than he was buying them for. It was a very impressive rant but from what I gathered 'some' web retailers get loss-leader pricing to increase market penetration & the high street shops are getting left in the ****.


And when it comes to buying cards at high prices, I know people who buy them from Tescos even though DigitalDepot are less than 5 miles away:shrug:
 
i HAD to buy one from jessops last week as i needed it there and then otherwise I would have bought online and saved a fortune.
 
I've actually stopped people from buying cards when I've been in Jessops, I've had to pull them to one side and tell them how much cheaper they can get them off the web, I'm not sure if this is right or wrong but I've just felt compelled to at the time, has anyone else done this :shake:
 
Your average amateur snapper will still buy the card with the camera and the fact that Jessops is still going despite being nowhere near Internet prices is why the prices will not come down on the High Street,I have a mate who despite my advice still bought his camera and card from Jessops despite me showing him the same combination on Warehouse Express for £70 less.
I do think that for higher price items many people are still scared of using the Net and so the likes of Jessops will continue to exist and charge what they do
 
Your average amateur snapper will still buy the card with the camera and the fact that Jessops is still going despite being nowhere near Internet prices is why the prices will not come down on the High Street,I have a mate who despite my advice still bought his camera and card from Jessops despite me showing him the same combination on Warehouse Express for £70 less.
I do think that for higher price items many people are still scared of using the Net and so the likes of Jessops will continue to exist and charge what they do
 
I paid £54 for my 8gb Extreme III CF card on saturday. I should think I could have got it cheaper online but I was at the store and it was a matter of convenience. I'm not sure how much I would have saved after adding p&p.
 
Treesie said:
I paid £54 for my 8gb Extreme III CF card on saturday. I should think I could have got it cheaper online but I was at the store and it was a matter of convenience. I'm not sure how much I would have saved after adding p&p.
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In this case £9 compared to Play.com, although they are temporarily out of stock.

Extreme III CF

Where did you buy it? (Obviously not Jessops!)
 
A lot of people simply can't be a$$ed with buying off the inter wazza name or even saving themselves money.

Couple of us have m/bikes, comes renewal time I'm on the web checking' then phone my insurers and get it reduced from 150 to 91 result. Tell mates and do they bother? NO.:shrug: Same with cars too, I don't bother telling them now.

Pro tog friend claimed to have paid Calumet £400 :cuckoo:each for 2 off 4gb Lexar 133x cf cards for his D200 because they were the 'only one's' recommended by Nikon according to Calumet, the cards I recommended must be fakes:shrug:

Tried explaining to another mate who's a gym fiend, every morning, that if he took out a Pru health policy, he'd get gym membership and health insurance for less than he was currently paying for gym only. 5 to 10 minutes further to drive to the gym offered , nah don't think I'll bother.

Go figure.
 
As long as High Street customer service is good then I don't mind paying the price, but Jessops are just plain rude half the time.
 
KayJay said:
As long as High Street customer service is good then I don't mind paying the price, but Jessops are just plain rude half the time.
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Not only that... Jessops once tried to sell me a display model camera... claiming it was new!

It was a compact camera displayed behind the counter. I asked the counter guy to show it to me and after a while I decided to buy it... But I got suspicious when he started insisting on taking it down to the stockroom rather then putting it back on the display...

So I asked to look at it once more and this time I made a mental note of the serial number and put a nail dent on one of the stickers on the camera...

When he brought the 'new' camera back to the counter, the display model wasn't on him... I looked at the camera in the box and the serial number was the same along with my nail dent! I pointed this out to the guy and he still insisted on telling me that it was a new camera and not the display model! I asked him to show me the display model... and he said that he wasn't prepared to show it to me!

I left the shop without buying and they lost a sale because they openly lied and tried to con me.
 
KayJay said:
As long as High Street customer service is good then I don't mind paying the price, but Jessops are just plain rude half the time.
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To a degree, but would you pay 4 times the price?? I'd have a lot better things to spend that money on, even if they brought me a cup of tea and a bacon sarnie!!
 
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