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By HD Guru

Edited by Michael Fremer

(November 7, 2009) Best Buy’s November 8, 2009 weekly advertising circular boasts that 32 HDTVs are “On Sale!” But of the 32, only four of them (12.5%) are at their lowest price of the year. The others, supposedly “on sale,” are either priced the same as they were as early as last August, or actually cost less between then and now, with the most egregious example being Sony’s KDL-52Z5100, which cost a rather significant $350 less at Best Buy as recently as last week (November 1st, 2009)!

Why these pricing disparities? HD Guru surmises that Best Buy figures if you need to buy an HDTV right now, you can’t wait for the after Thanksgiving Holiday prices, so you’ll be willing to pay more now for the same set that would have cost you less 3 months ago. What we know that you don’t, is that set makers are currently offering generous dealer incentives in an attempt to maintain or increase their respective market share for the year 2009.

Your Buying Strategy

First, do your homework. Don’t take Best Buy or another retailer at face value when they shout “On Sale!” in their advertising circulars. Go to Camelbuy.com. The site tracks every Best Buy price and clearly displays the highest and lowest prices of the year. Also check out the HD Guru Pricegrabber website (Link) to learn the lowest online prices. Use our negotiating tips (Link) to get the best deal. If you can hold out, wait until “Black Friday” or later when Best Buy and their competitors want to grab every sales dollar to make their respective revenue goals.

The “Real” Sale HDTVs

Below are the four HDTVs that actually are at Best Buy’s lowest price of the year. The “Was” and “Now” price reflects the lowest price from August until the present, not the difference from Saturday to Sunday.  A week before the ad breaks, Best Buy often raises prices so they can claim they’ve “slashed” higher “regular” prices, even though in reality the “regular” price they cite is inflated and anything but “regular”. Prices are rounded up to the nearest dollar to save space.

Sam=Samsung

Make/Model               Size     Was     Now       Save

Sam/LN32B640          32″      $800    $749.99   $50

Sam/LN37B550          37″      $800    $749.99    $50

Sam/LN46B650          46″      $1450  $1409.99  $40

Sharp/LC19SB27UT  19″      $240    $219.99    $20

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