Getting the Best Price on a Camcorder

If you use services like PriceGrabber.com or NexTag.com for price comparisons, you may be missing out. Some online retailers don't publish all their prices, because some suppliers request that a price not be published if it goes below a certain level.

So, for example, at the time of this writing, if I look for the best price for a Flip Ultra-HD on either of these services, I get $178.49 at PriceGrabber, and $180.61 at NexTag.  Both were at Dell. (Interestingly, they calculated the tax differently, though I provided each with my zip code.)

Checking the price for a Flip Ultra-HD at Amazon, you'll see a note like this:

Price: To see our price, add this item to your cart. You can always remove it later.

If you do add it, and check your cart, you see a price of $169.99 -- no tax, free shipping.

We have focused on Amazon as our retailer for several reasons:

  • When we go through exercises like the above, and compare prices that include tax and shipping, Amazon almost always comes out on top.
  • Amazon has an amazingly efficient operation.  Products almost always arrive at our home sooner than they predict.
  • Amazon packages their products well.  We have never received damage in shipment.