Don't presume ...

[Phil Pascoe]

Screwfix etc. are cheap. In their "clearance" sale a basic Milwaukee impact driver is £84.99, a basic Milwaukee multi tool £159.99.

From SGS (others are available) Milwaukee Fuels are £82.67 and £141.23 respectively. Clearance sale my rectum.

 

[Spectric]

Sales are mostly just a gimick to move excess stock or boost sales over a short period. If you compare prices of any given item from various sellers the price variations can be amazing, what might be a bargain one month can become the most expensive the next month. I do find it a bigger job these days when looking for anything because of variations not only in the price but with shipping and what is included in the deal, you can find what looked like a bargain to be anything but. What we need is an insider who could explain how the marketing strategies work, I do not believe any use loss leaders.

 

[D_W]

A common thing here, too. Going out of business sales are the worst. It used to be that retailers sold most of their goods in a lingering going out of business sale. What would happen is the good stuff would sell high, but by the time you got to the end, the junk that was left was 10% of new.

Now, stores take a payment as they're going out from firms that specialize in those sales, and what happens is the high value goods are generally removed from the shelves and sold to another retailer. The resale firm comes in with old stock that never sold or less desirable items and then puts "marked down" prices on it - essentially trying to catch people who don't think very hard so they can sell stuff that nobody wanted (like year old computers, older model TVs, etc).

I'm sure amazon facilitates this further now, along with ebay, where large volume sellers can get lower commissions. If you have something like a desirable TV or computer, there's no reason to sell it for 25% off when you can buy the stock in a negotiate deal and go sell it 2% lower than the going rate on amazon and do a lot better.

Wal mart does a little finagling, too, by making clearance racks and non clearance items mixed with them without demarcation of anything, and they used to have a price match policy, but that doesn't apply to most things now including the mix in items on clearance or price matched bits. They're very clever - but their policy is written - most people just don't read it - the way they lay the aisles it can be like a schematic and they will flatly tell you: on the ends of ailes in section ___ , items qualify for the price match guarantee, but the items between two guarantee price displays are not subject to the same pricing terms.

 

[nickds1]

Occasionally it works well - about two years ago, B&Q (who are the same group as Screwfix) had a silly sale on where I ended up getting a Dremel 4000 kit (about 40 bits, including the flexible extension and a case) for £40 quid., They often do "buy two power tools and the cheaper one is half price" etc.

If you know what you're after and get in quick, there are a few bargains to be had. Now if only I could get GENUINE Makita 5AH Lxt BL1850 batteries at a decent price... (the world is full of dreadful copies & dangerous fakes).,

 

[martin.pearson]

It's not just the upfront price but how Companies deal with returns or faults. I've bought a few bits from Screwfix over the years because I know that if it does go wrong I have always been able to return & get a replacement without question. That for me is worth paying a bit extra upfront for.
I have also bought from other companies & had all sorts of problems with their after sales service. Problem is that you don't know when you make a purchase if you are going to have problems further down the line lol

 

[rob1693]

Screwfix had a drill on offer at £139.99 with 2 5ah batteries charger and case i bought it just for batteries and charger which cost more individually

Not sure if it's still on offer

 

[flying haggis]

some one on here was selling makita batts recently

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/makita-5amp-18v-batteries-brand-new.134577/

 

[clogs]

Please look at the german ebay...
I bought a fuel 18v Millwaukee 1/2 nut driver (like and air gun but elec) for 1/2 the price of the same thing in the UK....
def worth a look.....
wont buy from amazon ever as had loads'a probs with returns...

 

[Fitzroy]

My kids love the computer game Fortnite and it's a disaster for this kind of behaviour. They have sales of digital items, that are only available for the next 2hrs, a big countdown timer and the price goes up and down during the period, they hang on every clock tick and say please dad can I have some vBucks to buy this else I'll miss out. It should be illegal in a child's play environment. Trying to educate two boys under 12 about pressure sales, etc shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Doug71]

My kids love the computer game Fortnite and it's a disaster for this kind of behaviour. They have sales of digital items, that are only available for the next 2hrs, a big countdown timer and the price goes up and down during the period, they hang on every clock tick and say please dad can I have some vBucks to buy this else I'll miss out. It should be illegal in a child's play environment. Trying to educate two boys under 12 about pressure sales, etc shouldn't be necessary.

My 2 boys (9 & 12) hardly played Fortnite for months but since the new season came out just before Christmas they are back on it again wanting battle passes and skins etc, I had forgotten how agitated they get with it all.

Talking good deals and gaming have people seen Microsoft/XBox is buying the gaming company Activision for $68.7 BILLION I just can't get my head around numbers like that.

 

[MARK.B.]

Nor me Doug more like telephone numbers than amounts of money , quite mind boggling

 

[D_W]

Screwfix had a drill on offer at £139.99 with 2 5ah batteries charger and case i bought it just for batteries and charger which cost more individually

Not sure if it's still on offer

those kits often get bought by "tycoons" here who split the tools and batteries apart and then ship them to amazon and create listings (allowing amazon to do the fulfillment).

 

[mikej460]

I buy a lot from Screwfix and had a look at their 'clearance sale' today, clicked on 'tools' and only a handful of items had a decent discount and far too many had no discount at all. I like Screwfix a lot but you do have to be careful.

Clearanceviewall - Search Results | Screwfix.com

 

[stuart little]

Screwfix etc. are cheap. In their "clearance" sale a basic Milwaukee impact driver is £84.99, a basic Milwaukee multi tool £159.99.

From SGS (others are available) Milwaukee Fuels are £82.67 and £141.23 respectively. Clearance sale my rectum.

You usualy find the 'real' bargains are not available - IF they ever where! eg; DW brushless drill bare unit £43

 

[diytoolbox]

Please look at the german ebay...
I bought a fuel 18v Millwaukee 1/2 nut driver (like and air gun but elec) for 1/2 the price of the same thing in the UK....
def worth a look.....
wont buy from amazon ever as had loads'a probs with returns...

Bought a Faithful Plane No 6, described AS NEW from Amazon Warehouse for slightly lower than NEW price. It arrived with severed frog.
Returned it on the same day it arrived. It was 2 weeks ago, still no refund, nothing even showing on the return status menu of Amazon.
I have suspicion now that Amazon Warehouse sells goods damaged as NEW or VG knowingly, because it happened to me a few times now.
I cancelled Amazon Prime, and will stop buying from Amazon for good. Their Refund process takes forever, once something is wrong and returned for full refund. Needing to get on to the support and complain again, and it is waste of time and hassle.

Buy from Amazon Warehouse, and chances are you get no goods, and no money for weeks. Avoid.

 

[diytoolbox]

Instead of buying from Amazon, I went to local ScrewFix and bought a DeWalt Tape Measure and few hard brush bits for drill on their clearance sales last night. The tape measure was 50% off, and the 3x brush bits were also 15% bulk buying discount. I felt they were great buys. Checked with Amazon price for the same items, and ScrewFix was indeed about 50% lower than Amazon price.

Will try to buy from local ScrewFix or eBay, and Lidl and Aldi from now on.

 

[Essex Barn Workshop]

Years ago I knew a chap who had a fruit and veg stand in a pub car park (in Wealdstone if anyone cares!) Saturday afternoon as he was closing, he always had loads of trays of fruit that wouldn't be any good by the Monday which he sold off at £1 a box. He was swamped with buyers, many waiting 30 minutes or more for him to start selling this almost out of date produce.
One day I said to him "You must lose a fair bit on that £1 stuff"
He said "Are you crazy? The wholesalers can't give it away on the Friday, I pay about 10p a box and don't take it out of my van until closing time. I make more money in that last hour than the rest of the day"

 

[Spectric]

Some of the best bargains can be had if you avoid the "latest and greatest" Think about what you actually need rather than what takes your fancy, when brushless drills came out you could get the brushed motor versions for a good price because demand had fallen and you often find this with many things, a new something comes out which everyone rushes to buy but sit back and watch the price of the old fall, it will be just as good as it was at the higher price.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Buy the products that were last years best buy - you lose out on the last year of development - but often save big time, and buy proven technology not unproven new features.

Sadly the strategy rarely works with wine or whisky ............. the stuff they couldn't sell last year goes up in price!!