Glad to see this come up again. Not because I started it, but because these points need to be being discussed out there.
Also you have to compare 'like with like'. You can't compare a bricks 'n mortar operation with a purely online store, the overheads and service are different and there will generally be a price differential to reflect this.
Richersounds, bricks & mortar all over UK, with a store in Belfast, and are renowned as much for their great customer service as their prices: same TV I mentioned in my OP - £1100, including 5-year warranty . . .
[broken link removed]
€1211 today. €20 shipping south for boards.ie members. To keep the discussion current, this TV is now €1900 from panasonicshop.ie, €1800 from Alliance Electric, and (at least up till mid-December) €2200 from Harvey Norman.
It's capitalism. Buy low , sell high. The bigger the profit, the better.
What's 'bad' about it?
If you're a seller, nothing.
That is until punters cop on and realise they have alternatives, and their resentment of your greed flourishes as they learn more and more by asking more and more questions, until eventually they happily leave you high and dry because they begin to do their shopping where their limited cash goes a lot further. And all the while their consciences are as clear as yours was back when you were ripping them off . . .
I had been looking at this TV and the earlier models over the last 2 years but could not justify the purchase cost here. I had searched online but could not find any dealer who would deliver outside of mainland UK.
Seeing the post above for the UK site, I was hugely interesested and followed up with a call to them. I have bought the TV in question including delivery to ROI for under 1400 Euro from them. Thats 800 euro left in my pocket that I would have spent if I purchased locally. That should be more than enough to cover any repair costs if I have to get the TV seen to locally. Thanks to the OP for the link.
Good for you, Ivannomonet. What do you think of the TV? PM me if you don't want to tell all on this thread.
I was thinking of doing the same but baulked at the thought of "what if". I did a check just now and the irish shop gives a 5 year guarantee and a free BD player. If added together it comes to about 800 euro!
Enjoy your new plasma, perhaps you might post back about pic quality.
Euro is now nearly 93 pence.!!
noah
If you're talking about panasonicshop.ie, IIRC, the BD player included in the offer was either the DMP-BD30 or BD35? The BD30 is disconinued now (AFAIK), but its replacement, the DMP-BD35, is currently £190 (€210 today) from Richersounds.
That brings your RS spend up to €1441 (at today's rate): TH-50PZ80 TV @ €1211 (including the 5-year pan-European warranty) + DMP-BD35 BD player @ €210 + €20 shipping.
Panasonicshop.ie's price today for this TV is €1900. Even if the BD offer was still on, that's still €469 dearer than RS's €1441.
"Free" BD player, eh?
A few things I've found include richersounds charging substantially more if you pay in euros than if you pay in sterling - always pay in sterling from their website - example Denon S101 - £679.95 or 1014.99 euro.
I've been in direct contact with the manager of RS in Belfast, and he posts on boards.ie - there are a number of important things here: 1. their .ie site is rarely updated. 2. The Belfast store can aparrently get you pretty much anything you fancy from the .com site, and even some products not even listed on either the .ie or .com sites. 3. The Belfast store will charge you the .com web price when you tell them that's where you spotted the product/deal. 4. Aparrently they prefer you pay in stg - easier for them, cheaper for you.
I couldn't have ever dreamed that I could own AV gear as good as I'm getting, but by researching on-line and shopping outside ROI, I'll soon be getting a big-brand 50" 1080p HD plasma TV, a very decent Denon AVR, award-winning QAcoustic speakers, an award-winning Panasonic 400GB HDD DVD recorder, a 320GB Freesat PVR, a PS3 and an XBox 360, a heap of peripherals for the PS3 & XBox,
and all the cables & brackets to put it all together for just over €4200, including shipping where applicable. I'm resisting the temptation to put that figure in bold, but it deserves to be. How many of you ever thought you could own such gear for that sort of money?
Same products in ROI? Well over €6000, and that's with QAcoustics' older 1000-range speakers (rather than the latest 1000i-range I'm getting), which are actually almost double RS's price.
Whether this is all down to greed, VAT, shipping, insurance, wages, economies of scale, currency rates, the rain, or a combination of all of these, it still amounts to ROI, and I sarcastically applaud all the movers and shakers who so effectively got us seemingly irreversibly to this point . . .
Peace,
Mark