Price History! What does it mean and How does it help the consumers?
Payat Parin
Posts: 980
in The Commons
Price history is a good browser add on. It depicts the price changes and when it happens via points along the lines of the graph. But what exactly does that mean?
Are the price changes due to demand, decline, performance, or popularity? or which products are always on sale? Is it intended to imply to the consumer about the lowest price where it is best to purchase (that could mean waiting till the price drops)?
Do you pay attention to price history at all? Why? What good did it do to your shopping experience? What changes if any would you recommend?
Any thoughts...
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I use the long-term view on it and it helps me decide if something is worth getting now if I only sort of need it or if I should wait because it has a history of going on deeper sale.
It is not intended to imply anything. It is just a list of historical prices. It does not mean that the product in question will ever be at that low price again.
With that said, I personally use it to see how often an item went on sale in the past, what kind of discounts those sales were etc.
One thing that you can definitely use it for (along with the "best prices" email notifications which points out all these items) is to see that an item is currently on its biggest discount in a year, or half a year. That's usually a "go, buy it now! don't wait!" indication to me.
But that price history only shows you what the store has it marked down to. Depending on the deals (buy two get another 30% discount, etc) some of the more higher prices could actually be dropped to the lowest of all the prices! So to me, it shows that something goes on sale, but it doesn't give any indication what the final price could be, or when the lowest price occurred and by how much. It does indeed show how often an item goes on sale and that's useful, and gives a ballpark as to the beginning discount.
It also only shows March and tApril of this year. So prices on the graph ranges for only a month. Now, I am not sure about it's worth on the long run.
On the options page, you can change it to show the long timeframe, which is up to a year:
That is, if the given item has been in the store that long. :)
Oh ok! How do I do that? Is that under the settings of the browser?
@Ati: nevermind. I figured it under the Daz Deals settings..It's a learning curve lol.
I used the long time frame and tried Juggling Act for V4 (https://www.daz3d.com/juggling-act-for-v4). It had been a freebie twice, last year and this year. It is a probable indication that it will become a freebie again next year. So it means that consumers can wait for this probability to occur (cause it happens twice), unless in dire need to use it. Who knows what will happen..lol
This is true, but it DOES tend to grab the prices in the big generic "All DAZ ORIGINAL Animals"/"Super Gen 4 blowout" type sales, and most of those "buy 3 get X discount" deals are so filled with variables that the odds of that exact same sale price applying to two different people are fairly low... though I have noticed that more than a few "glitch sale" prices have worked their way into the database.
That said, I find the data really useful in determining two things - 1.) a general "decent price" range that one can expect the product to go on sale for with some regularity, and 2.) a rough idea of how often that item actually goes on sale, so I know roughly how long I'd most likely have to wait in order to get a better deal. And the key word, really, is "better." It would be nice to always get the "Best" deal, but I'm generally satisfied with just knowing that I didn't pay a lot more than I should have if I'd been willing to wait a week or two.
My spending habit here at the store is greatly influenced by the browser add-on. If the checkout price after the discounts/promos is greater than the lowest price shown in the history (excluding obvious price glitches), I won't buy it even if the discount looks good. I saved a ton doing this.
@y3kman: that is so practical. Stack up sale can save up to 90% like the V4 stack up sale at the end of February. I saved more on that and build up my product library. Hoepfully they do it again soon. The issue with stack up sale is that it isn't reflected in price history at all.