Shopping Tips

Sharing some shopping tips I learnt from Grace jie.

Feb 18th - After staying up late till 5am to wish everyone back home Happy Chinese New Year, I scanned the weekly ads for a good notebook offer, never purchase anything not on offer or without coupon. In the States, offers and rebates are daily affairs and it's President's Day that day. I finally found the one I had been looking for for weeks. A special edition white coloured HP Pavilion at only $599, Turion64X2, 120Gb harddisk, 1Gb DDR2 with an in-built webcam.

I went to El Camino, my favorite weekend street full of stores like Bestbuy, Circuitcity, Officedepot, Borders, Bloackbuster, Toyrus, Petsmart, Spicehut, In&Out, Sports Authority . I waited outside Bestbuy at 9.30am for the offer and the store opened at 11am. I intended to roam other stores before it opened, however there were 2 other guys waiting and we started chatting about notebooks, petrol prices and taxes, though my knowledge of them are limited. After chatting for a while, they asked if I am a Singaporean. They are not the only ones who asked throughout my stay here. It's amazing how others can identify my origin from my accent.

At 10am onward, a line began to form. When the store doors opened, we made our way in orderly, but suddenly a few guys from the back started running towards the notebook section. The guys with me started shouting for them to stop but they just ran ahead, everyone started running too. I managed to make my way to the front of the new line by telling those that cut my queue that I came before them and, surprisingly enough, they let me pass to the front, however the two that started the run were already paying for their notebooks. I am just glad that I managed to get omy notebook. The notebook really looks awesome and slim for a 15.4".

I went to the other stores where their star buys were all sold out. Good deals end fast. I tried out the most difficult trick that is to go for the last item on the shelf and complain about any defect to obtain a discount. For my attempt, the box of my item had a small tear, ha, I managed to get a 10% off after approaching the manager. The shopping culture here is based on trust, hence anything you purchase can be refunded for cash even if the item does not have any defect within 15-90 days depending on the store's policy. So if you see any good deal, grab it first and consider later.