How to get the best prices on PC Parts – Part 1

The best deals you can find?

When you find the right PC build for yourself, the hardest part is over and the waiting game begins. Unless you’re loaded with cash no offense, your probably going to wait for your parts to go on special. So what are some tips for buying new and second parts?

Here is the video How to get the best prices on PC Parts – Part 1:




https://youtu.be/ewOkKK56g0c
 

YSTech: https://ystech.org
YSTech Full Review (+Transcript): https://ystech.org/the-best-prices-on-pc-parts

PriceSpy NZ: https://pricespy.co.nz/
PCPartPicker (Set to NZ): https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/
Choice Cheapies NZ: https://www.cheapies.nz/deals
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/pipeline/signup
YouShop: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop/app
XE Excahnge Rates: https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/
Consumer Guarantees Act 1993: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0091/latest/DLM311053.html
Or
Understanding CGA93: https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/consumer-laws/consumer-guarantees-act/

Tldr;

1. Use Pricespy and PC PartPicker for Price Alerts
2. Use Pricespy and PC PartPicker to check for pricing history.
3. Stalk the parts you want by understanding your opportunity cost.
4. Be strict in sales to your budget. But! Flexibility is important i.e. Spending $20 for 15% more performance.
5. Pull the trigger on good sales.
6. Beware of illusion sales i.e. Sales drop prices by $2 or a small amount
7. Check out Choice Cheapies for awesome deals.
8. Ask for discounts instore.
9. Try amazon
10. Use amazon prime for good competitive prices and make sure you cancel your trial 30 day prime before 30 days other way you will be charged.
11. Problems with amazon:
12. Shipping costs are high or you can’t ship at all.
13. Negate shipping with YouShop by NZPost but can be very expensive.
14. 15% GST on all imported goods
15. Exchange rate is weak. Use xe.com for exchange rates
16. ‘No Warranty’ off amazon and no use of CGA93.

Transcript:

When you find the right PC build for yourself, the hardest part is over and the waiting game begins.

Unless your loaded with cash no offence, your probably going to wait for your parts to go on special.

So what are some tips for buying new and second parts?

 

Intro

 

I’ll start off with buying new pc parts as that is what most of you will do.

First, off you should check the pricing history of parts.

What I mean by this is checking back into the lifespan of this a pc part like for example the ryzen 3600.

As you can see here at different times of the year the part will either fluctuate or decrease in price.

This is usually because of sales, inventory as in how much they have in stock and various other factors i.e. they could be wanting to get rid of this older part to make room for a newer one.

The best way to monitor this is to go on pricespy new zealand and set a price alert for when prices will fall.

This is the easiest way to monitor prices as it will also send you an email alert for when any stores put their prices down. Most of the time the deals are for special sales during an upcoming public holiday such as Waitangi Day, Christmas, Easter, Black Friday etc. Prices can also fall because a store wants to get rid of parts or new series of parts have release. In any case the pricespy method is the most efficient way to see when prices fall.

 

Stalking prices on parts is quite an art, but here is a little bit of advice on it. Make sure the build you want is actually in your budget. Ensure that your budget is strict so that you don’t go over, but again as I have said before flexibility in the budget is sometimes not a bad thing. If you can pay $20 extra dollars to go from a Ryzen 3 3300x to a Ryzen 5 3600, it might actually be worth it in the long run. The r eason is because the difference in price now might be higher but the marginal rate of satisfaction will be higher in the long run from getting a higher performing part. Now this is not always the case, but raw performance is raw performance there is no arguing that some parts are simply faster than others. It’s a matter of is this extra money that I am paying now worth for the higher performing more expensive part that I may need to upgrade in 3-4 years compared to the lower performing cheaper part that I may need to upgrade 2 years. It’s a tossup but you get to decide that.

 

Make sure you are strict in sales. Some sales are only done for namesake and for well to make sales. It often happens that some pc part retailers only put their prices down by $10 or so, just to make the illusion of a great sale. Be wary of this as its really sneaky but happens very often.

At the same time don’t be afraid to purchase parts when they are cheap. For example I made the mistake of waiting to purchase the Ryzen 5 3600 in early 2020. The part fell to an amazing price of $280 which was cheaper than buying off amazon. There was no dought that this was a good deal but I thought the price would fall further. But guess what… it actually increased in price all the way back to $350. This was very disappointing, but this was my opportunity cost of waiting for the price to fall it actually rose because I waited. Now there other factors which made it rise in price such as supply chain issues because of coronavirus and increasing demand for pc parts during lockdowns. The opposite to this is my SSD which the Samsung 860 EVO which normal price is $120. I waited for this one right until August – September and I saw a sale for it for $99  at computer lounge. I snatched this one up as that is the lowest price it had gone to and has ever since. Again if you have seen the price history of a part and its at a really good price, don’t wait too long otherwise the deal may never come again.

 

A small mention is to https://www.cheapies.nz/deals which has awesome deals that people put on their forum. I personally have got a few deals because of this website. Signing up to their daily newsletter is also great to see when deals do happen. Its also great to see the previous deals from each individual store in the categories. Overall cheapies nz is great and I would highly recommend it.

 

Another way is to try and get a deal instore. Now most pc part stores at least in New Zealand won’t do this anymore, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Sometimes if you buy all your parts from one store or at least most of them, the store might give you a slight discount. It will usually work better in smaller pc part stores compared to larger stores like PBTech and Computer Lounge. I have had this personally happen to me when I built my first pc back in 2017 the discount was around 8% so not to shabby at all. The other question to ask instore is about price matching. Usually most pc part stores will price match just depending on their own internal policy. But if you have a preferred pc store i.e. you know their customer service is better at X PC Store compared to XX PC Store you might be able to price match with certain parts. Now don’t count on this working but I guess its always a good question to ask.

 

Trying amazon might not be that bad either. There are a lot of pc parts on amazon that have their normal prices as our special sale prices. I have personally bought ram, ssd, gpu, microphone, audio interface and a few other things off amazon with no problem. I have also had no problem with these items, just keep in mind there risk involved when purchasing off amazon. Having a trial amazon prime account is also great as they can give you very competitive discounted rates when purchasing. Just remember to cancel your membership before the 30 day mark otherwise you will be charged.

There are a few problems with buying from amazon from New Zealand.

  1. Not all amazon sellers ship to New Zealand. If they don’t then you could use YouShop with New Zealand post which is quite expensive and is very hit or miss with their service from my personal experience. When you are able to ship from US to New Zealand sometimes the cost of postage off Amazon is so nuts that the part you want may end up being cheaper in New Zealand. This is something to watch out for.
  2. There is a 15% GST tax on all goods imported to New Zealand. So every item on amazon automatically has this gst charge attached to them. Now this is usually not a deterrent as sometimes the price + the gst charge is still cheaper than buying in New Zealand.
  3. Exchange rate. Depending on the NZD to USD exchange rate prices will fluctuate. The best thing to do is to goto XE.com which has real time updates on exchange rates. If the New Zealand dollar is weak and is only worth 1NZD = 0.65USD than you will pay more. If its at 1NZD = 0.71 you wi ll pay relatively less. Just keep in mind that you will not have that exchange rate when you pay with your card and it will be a bit less than the quoted exchange rate on xe.com. i.e If on xe.com it 1NZD = 0.71 you will probably pay with 1NZD = 0.68USD as the banks etc make a small profit to minimize their costs when exchanging currency for you.
  4. You kind of don’t have a warranty when buying off amazon. What I mean by this is that you can’t just return the part to a store. You will actually have to contact amazon and ship back the part don’t quote me on this from my understand at your own cost (I’m assuming). I personally have never needed to return a part to amazon before. Also along with this you don’t get the awesome consumer rights like you do in New Zealand like the CGA17 etc.

So that’s about all the advice for getting the best deals on brand new parts. If I think of anymore I’ll put them in a new video so make sure to subscribe for more pc content.

-YS

 




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