Is this BS?

Re: Is this BS?

david weaver

There's a chance that the product is slightly different. There's also a pretty good chance that there are a whole bunch of economic reasons for changing part numbers and rotating stock.

As in, being able to say that you have none to exchange, that your part number doesn't match against someone else's for price comparison, being able to change the part number and listing to prevent people from comparing flooring at $5 to flooring at $2.50 that's nearly the same or similar.

The buyers at Lowes are going to discourage someone at mowhawk or some other supplier from giving you straight up information that you may go and print on the internet.

The same goofiness occurs on ebay all the time. Minor adjustments to listings, increasing prices, etc. Ebay provides a price history with items sold to try to prevent sellers from listing something for pennies, selling a bunch of it and then jacking the price up making it look like people are glowing about the great deal at an inflated price.

In order to eliminate the history of past sales, the sellers adjust the listings to cover their tracks.

By the way...

david weaver

with nobody like ebay monitoring sellers, what's to keep Lowes from doing the same thing on their own site.

As you mention, they can sell a whole bunch at $2.50, get glowing reviews and then revise the listing but keep the feedback so that it looks like 71% would recommend the product at the $4.99 price.

As in Bait and Switch?

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Old retailer's game, Barry.

If you can document it with screen shots, send it to Consumer Reports. They love to include such stories in the magazine.

Re: Is this BS?

Dick Coers

I think big box stores change nothing but the model numbers on identical product all the time. It gives them a leg up against price matching.

Match This?

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Know someone who swears by Consumer Reports' reviews and ratings. I asked her once how well she did purchasing the same model number as listed in the reviews. The response was "almost never, but they're the same version or next in line."

right . . .

I'm shocked!

Jesse Cloud

Oldest trick in the book. See also "We will match any competitor's price" but when you try to do that the model number is every so slightly different.

Closely related to "new and improved " when they change artwork on the label of something.

Re: Is this BS?

David Yoho

Not sure this is the same thing but Lowe's and probably HD sell stuff from major manufactures (brands) that are only sold at Lowe's. Examples - Husqvarna outdoor equipment and John Deere mowers. James River Equipment doesn't sell any mower that the model begins with a D or E. Same with the Charbroil grills at Lowe's. Call Charbroil for parts, give them the number on the unit and they know it was purchased from Lowe's.

I've also seen an instance when I was shopping for finish nailer online at Lowe's. Search turned up a page indicating they had what I wanted at a very good price but not in stock at any store. It indicated it could be shipped though. Thought about it a while and decided to go back and order. Tried to place order but kept getting an error. Went back and refreshed page and now it was showing it as unavailable.

As for your flooring - it sounds like what others have said - bait and switch.

Re: I'm shocked!

Stuart Johnson

Several years ago when I bought my DeWalt miter saw Lowes had one price (I don't remember the amount) Home Depot had the same saw 99 cents less. HD was advertising same price as plus 10% less. I got the saw at a 10% discount. Another time on a compressor they said the 10% was !0% of the difference or in the case of my saw 10 cents. I'm not sure but I think that was a store by store policy.

Did a price match

Michael Farinella

at HD and Lowes for a refrigerator some years ago. Lowes had a cheaper one but HD wouldn't match because of a "different model number" (same machine). The difference: the butter dish was slightly different.

how did you know

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

"the butter dish was slightly different."

How were you able to determine that the compressor, electronics, composition of the plastic liner, etc were the same, or that the wholesale price was the same? What was the reason for not buying where the price was less? What was the motivation/expected advantage to go some place else to hope for an equivalent price?

I bought a refrigerator last year at a substantially lower price than other places were offering a similar refrigerator. Turns out the store had bought a large quantity of this manufacturing run. I would not expect another store to match this price even if their offering was similar, nor would I have thought it reasonable to ask. I rewarded the store that offered the best price in the first place.

From some of the recent conversations here it would seem that customer's expectations have become unreasonable. Every time an unreasonable expectation is met the seller adjusts prices to other customers to compensate for the loss.

Re: Did a price match

Jesse Cloud

Home appliances are a different story altogether. They change very little from year to year except for the exterior aesthetics (shape of buttons, etc.).

A thrifty buyer is well advised to look at last year's models and compare to current models.

Last year's models can often be had at a significant discount. Most cities will have a dealer that specializes in that.

Large chains often have "special" models of appliances that have smaller motors, etc to allow cheaper prices. Be careful there!

Re: how did you know

Michael Farinella

Only the last digit in the model number was different. So I went to Lowes and saw the refer. Same except for the butter dish. This was 25 years ago.