Yes, you read it right... I am going to talk about Dell. Specifically, I am going to talk about Dell's stupid pricing and financing policies as they pertain to "Home/Home Office" buyers versus "Small Business" buyers. And somewhere toward the end I may get to the part where it's relevant to Apple. Sort of. Have a seat... this one will take a while.Here's the deal. I needed to buy another flat panel display today after an issue I had with the one I recently purchased from NewEgg*. I happen to like Dell LCDs. They are an amazing value and the LCDs themselves really do look great. Bright, crisp, no dead pixels... can't ask for much more. They aren't as gorgeous on the outside as an Apple display, but they get the job done and I already have enough Apple displays. For this task, a Dell will do just fine.
I happen to have a Dell Preferred credit account. I haven't had any reason to use it in a while, but I figured I'd use it today to pick up a new Dell UltraSharp 1905FP Flat Panel for the office. On Dell's homepage you can choose which store to enter: the "home/home office" store or the "small business" store or the "medium/large business" store. I have a Small Business - registered with the State of NY and everything. Aren't I special? Dell thinks I am. I'm so special that I can buy the 1905FP for $100 less through the small biz link than I can through the home/home office link. Gee, which link do you think I'm going to buy through?
The only problem with my plan was that when I went to checkout, I was informed that I couldn't use my Preferred account to buy from the small biz store. Now I could have just used one of my credit cards and been done with it, but I was a little ticked off by the whole price discrepancy thing. So I called Dell and asked them why I couldn't complete my order. They didn't have a good answer. They said if I wanted to buy that monitor at that price, I'd have to either apply for a business line of credit or use another credit card. Does it have to be a business credit card (which I do have)? Nope. Any credit card will do. Whether I was actually a business or not made no difference to them, had I chosen to just use another credit card. In other words, anyone can save $100 (even more on some other items) just by clicking the small biz link on the home page.
Of course they'd prefer me to apply for a business line of credit so that they can hit me with insanely high interest rates and make that $100 back from me. I decided to play along. I applied for and was instantly approved for a generous line of business credit and I used it to pay for the monitor. They won. Game over, right?
Not so fast. A few hours after I got my order confirmation I called Dell Financial Services and asked them if I could make a payment over the phone with them. They said yes, so I paid the balance off in full. I have no intentions of ever touching that line of credit again. So much for those high interest rates.
I know you think I'm crazy. After all, I could have just paid with a credit card and accomplished the same thing. But if I had done that I wouldn't have had the satisfaction of knowing that I had outsmarted them to a small extent. It's a little thing, yes, but it felt so good :)
Since this is not The Unofficial Dell Weblog, I must end on a different note. Don't you think that if Apple pulled what Dell pulls in this area, Mac fans would be absolutely furious? The backlash would be incredible. Sure, Apple has corporate discounts (not great ones, either) and developer discounts and academic discounts - but it's not quite the same thing. I can't stop thinking about how many people are paying $100 more for what I just bought, and even more for other items. I think it's a dumb policy. C.K. hinted that Dell is justified in charging different customer types different prices because "home" customers cost more to support than business customers. If the price differential was only applied to computers, I just might buy that. But for monitors and other peripherals it doesn't fly with me.
Whew! I sure can ramble on, can't I? Congrats - to both of you - for making it this far. If you're lucky, I might just spare you any further words from me until tomorrow.
*the issue was that they shipped me a refurbished flat panel monitor that still had the RMA paperwork in the box from the previous customer who had returned it. Sure enough, the monitor still suffered from the same issue. Presumably because no one ever bothered to take the returned monitor out of the box and fix it before selling it to someone else (that would be me)! Talk about having egg on your face.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
josh said...
thats funny i just bought a 2005FPW from home for 385$
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Fazal Majid said...
Techbargains has a RSS feed, so if your aggregator supports feed filtering (like Temboz does), you can just subscribe to it and filter out anything not mentioning the 2005FP. Dell's promos rotate so often, chances are you will find a good deal within a couple of months. Kind of like Priceline for Dell...
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Der_Kommissar said...
Make sure you also close that line of credit, since it will impact your credit rating whether you use it or not.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
David said...
This is the reason why Dell had a Class Action Suit brought against them.
http://news.com.com/Dell+sued+over+bait-and-switch+charges/2100-1047_3-5587443.html?part=rss&tag=5587315&subj=news
And Apple doesn't do this too you because they already stick it too you when you purchase hardware :P
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
David said...
Thats why Dell got slapped with a class action suit.
http://news.com.com/Dell+sued+over+bait-and-switch+charges/2100-1047_3-5587443.html?part=rss&tag=5587315&subj=news
And Apple doesn't have to do this too you because they're already gouging you on the hardware :P
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
David said...
Sorry for the double post
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
daggerquill said...
Apple's been doing this for years with the Apple Student Loans. They only have two "prosumer" pricing schemes, and no one's going to complain about giving students a break, but when it comes to the loan, the attempt to trap the unsuspecting and the usurous rates are the same.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Casey Kelley said...
I sold my PowerBook and will be buying a Dual 2.0 G5 tomorrow... I was online looking for LCD's and hey, if a 1905FP is good enough for Laurie, it's good enough for me. Plus, it was cheap, and the Anandtech review was pretty good.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Laurie said...
Hope you like it, Casey :) I've always wanted to be a trendsetter!
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Calihafan said...
The monitor in the 20-inch Dell display and the monitor in the 20-inch Apple display are identical. They are both made by Philips. Buy the cheaper one (Dell). I know a family who bought two of these for the price of one Apple monitor and put Apple stickers on them.
Calih
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
Winston said...
Apple Academic discounts are pretty sweet though, if you stay away from the loans.
When I bought my 17inPB (at a $300 discount), I also got the Production Suite (precursor to Final Cut Studio) for only $500 - about 60% off the regular price.
Now that final cut studio has been released - for another $500 I can upgrade to teh non-academic Final Cut Studio. When considering that Motion alone is $299, that's a fantastic deal.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:18PM
James Legg said...
When I bought tiger in the UK, decided to get a family pack as I have two macs at the moment and am looking at getting a third, being in Further Eductaion I logged onto the Further Education store , via the NUS (National Union of Studnets) site to find that the prise was £137, £2 less than normall, slighlty disapointed I ordered anyway. My Dad then pointed out to me that the Higer Education store was overfing tiger Familiy Pack for £68. Confused i phoned apple to try and work out was going on, they had no idea so I ended up cancelling and ordering form the Higher Education Store in the end, its not just Dell that are confusing!
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6-20-2005 @ 2:34PM
Edward Cruz said...
If you stay up to date with Techbagains and Fatwallet, you can get Dell LCD's for really cheap. Just like NCTRNL got a 2005fpw for $489, I got my 2-2005FPW's for $360 shipped and taxed. I also got a 2405fpw (24" version) for $860.
To make this Apple relavent, the 2005fpw and Apple 20" share the same LCD, but have different housings, OSD's, and backlights. Here is a good review on a comparison:
http://anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2400
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6-20-2005 @ 2:34PM
Edward Cruz said...
Oh I meant $360 for each of those 2005fpw's, not for both.
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6-28-2005 @ 9:11AM
NCTRNL said...
I bought mine from the small business site...and I don't have a business. I just registered and bought it. I bought a 2005FPW for $489. It's beautiful. It works great with my Powerbook.
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7-22-2005 @ 2:22PM
n8gray said...
Incidentally, the 2005FPW uses the same LCD panel as the 20" cinema display. I bought one (the Dell) to use with my powerbook and it's smokin'!
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7-26-2005 @ 5:31PM
Leo said...
Yeah, I think this is pretty old news... Dell has always had promotions that differ from store to store, day to day. Its pretty much known that if something is not discounted at dell, it will be in a few days. Promos and coupon codes will always bring down the price of accessories... especially dell branded accessories. I am sure that monitor will hit $199 by the end of the month ;-) And it completely does not matter one bit if you really are a small business or not... anyone can buy from either the SMB store or Home store. It used to be beneficial purchasing from the home store (being in california), because it was tax-free. But now Dell charges tax in CA... so whatever store is the cheapest is the best.
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7-29-2005 @ 12:33PM
frank d said...
Keeping track of Dell's price schemes is almost a full time job. Prices go up and down like waves roll ashore. Spotted a certain notebook with good specs the other day for somebody, now can't find the same price & nor model any more .... . One price today, a different price & story tomorrow.
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