You'll need an internet connection (And if you are reading this blog, chances are you have one). First, think about the item on your list that you want to research.
As an example I'll walk you through a completely unknown topic (for me) for an item I've been eying out.
"A cordless phone set (a pair, or better yet 4 units)".
Our phones (while not bad), are full of static, and they are... let's say... old. So know I (with not much prior knowledge on what makes a good set) will walk together in the land of the "research".
Step 1: Find the price range
Everybody would like a nice car, but nice cars are very expensive. The first step is to get an idea of what is the price range of the item that we're looking at. We're not going for specifics, just what kind of prices are within the range of a cordless phone.
- Use Google Shopping to get price ranges
Go to www.google.com, then click on "Shopping" and type "cordless phone". See what the search results bring back.
Look at the bottom of the listings, where it says "refine product results". See the breakdown in prices.
Check each of the two lowest and two highest options. There you can see that cordless phones under 7$ are really not cordless phones, but replacement parts (or a very old refurbished phone). From 7 to 11$ I can see some cordless phones but they are mostly single units, which I'm not interested in.
The bulk seems to be in the $11 to $70 range. So now comes the next part. Let's see what a high-end, 70$ cordless phone looks like
At the very top of the google product listing, there is a "Sort By:" dropdown. Click on it, and select "Price: High to Low". This will give us the first items as the highest marked items.
Now on the list, you can see that Google is showing both ratings and the # of reviews that the rating consist of. To understand whom to trust follow this rule of thumb
- More Stars -> Better product
- Less than 5 reviews <- Diminished credibility.
If an item has great ratings , and on top has a lot reviews, you have scored a possible candidate. Remember, the purpose is not to pick a Particular model, but to start understanding the "picture".
For example, on this cordless phone search, it seems that
- Uniden Tru's are both expensive but very well liked
- Panasonic KX seems to come a close second
And then you can see that there are other brands that fall out (There is a Sony SPP S2730) which is not that well rated, even though it carries a $165 pricetag for new.
The information we have gotten so far is pretty good. We know which brands "dominate" the cordless phone space, around the "best bang for the buck" type of deal. Would this means that any Uniden phone will do. Probably not, but it does mean that any Uniden Tru that is on sale is worth a look.
Tripline:
- If I see an Uniden Tru set (2 or 4) that is between 90$ and 110$ new (Uniden is listed around 200$) then it's worth a look.
Step 2: Pick an item from the series and see what people like/hate about it
A lot of the time the reviews will tell you the things that the phone has that no-one else has. And details on how to evaluate other possible choices emerge. Let's take a look at those Uniden Tru.
The things that people look at (or "rave" about are)
- Distance (coverage)
- Sound Quality
- Battery Life
- No external antenna (which is something I wasn't expecting)
Now I understand what to look for in a cordless phone.
For kicks, let's see if I would buy an Uniden Tru, how much would it go for.
While google shopping gave me a good overview, is by no means the end-all be-all of pricing. To find pricing you'll need to do a couple of more searches. First stop: Ebay
Go to ebay.com and type the "Series" that you're looking for (no a specific phone, but the series, in our example Uniden Tru")
voila! There seems to be a lot of choices, but everything is mangled. So let's sort this out.
If we're just browsing (meaning, we're just looking around and we're not going to buy today), then head over to the ":Buy it now only" tab. Click on it, and then sort by "price + shipping: Lowest first"
We know that the Uniden Tru's are around 100$ ~ 150$, so let's see what's at the other end of the scale.
The first thing (as expected) is accessories for Uniden Tru's to eliminate it, narrow it down by category (on the left side). I'll click on Telephone & Pagers category and then in cordless phones.
Furthermore, I'll go and click on "New" condition. Now a get a concise list of possible cordless phones. Looking at the list I found a listing for the Uniden Tru- 9280 and a set of 3 handsets. Hm, looks very promising for only 93$ + 15$ shipping.
Next step, let's see now what people are thinking of the 9280 model. Go to google and type "Uniden Tru 9280 reviews". You'll get a result list of both sites that review it and sites that sell the product (online stores try to trick you by saying that they have reviews, when in fact the only thing they have is the product for sale with no reviews).
After a while you know which site to trust (for example, I saw a review from Amazon, so I clicked on it".
Even though there are very mixed reviews, one can start assess the risk of the positive vs the negative reviews. For example there is a review title "horrible". It seems to be an isolated case (if the phone were so broken nobody else would have ever give it a 5 star rating). So that can be safely ignored for the purpose of our detective work. For the second poor rating "I didn't like this product" he is definitively unhappy because the customer had to pay a restocking fee (this slants the reviews negatively). But overall, I am cautiously optimistic of this headset.
Up to here you've prepared yourself for Black Friday. The following is just that extra step if
a) You fell in love with something and can't have anything else beside that
b) Black Friday listed this particular product but doggone it, you couldn't get it.
"If I were to buy it today...."
If I were to buy it today, what would I do. Amazon lists it for $120. Can I get it cheaper than that? Of course!
If you have a model that you have your heart set on go to google shopping, and search the particular brand.
I see that the 3-set is available from amazon at 120$ but there is also an OhWala store that have it refurbished for $32.89. Now we'll talk about refurbished in another post. But for the most part the rule is if the company is somewhat trusted, it's fair to put the order in. While not technically a gamble, I'm comfortable with the site for the simple reason that it uses "Google Checkout" for its shopping cart. Google Checkout is a big plus for an unknown site, since it protects me from fraud. Plus to use Google checkout requires a certain level of competency from the merchant.
On top of that, the total I would be paying is $47.48 (with shipping).
Now, let's assume that I got a bad "vibe" from Ohwala site. What are the other alternatives?
The next cheapest one is papasbargains.com. As I go through the site, I notice that the site is really a "Yahoo Store", and to top it of it accepts Paypal as a method of payment, making this store, while unknown, extremely friendly. Both paypal, and yahoo store have policies benefitting the consumers more than the stores, so I feel protected. And in all, I ended up paying less ($42.37 with shipping included!).
To review:
- We started by saying we wanted a cordless phone
- We understood that a good headset might be between 30$ and 70$
- We see that one of the "series" that stands out is the Uniden Tru (valued around $150)
- And we now know, that if I find something "better" than my trip line I could jump on it
My Trip line became "Uniden Tru 9280-3 refurb, 42.37$".
- That's so good I might buy one now!
(the link for the curious. I wasn't endorsed by any of these stores. The actual process is what I do for anything that I buy. Really, only price and quality are my only discriminants!)
"It's not that long...really"
While doing the steps of this post seems to take a loong time. The actual process takes less than 10 minutes. It's more work typing all the post out than following what's here. After you do this once or twice, you'll become a very savvy shopper, and no-one will trick you into buying a bad deal.
We'll keep covering more of the "Black Friday" secrets on this blog. Stay tuned!
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