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Companies like Monoprice showed that it was possible to sell decent cables for cut-rate prices and completely undercut retail pricing. It works in part because cables are pretty stupid simple and many of them get made in the same Chinese factories as the branded ones. The Chinese factory mantra "Best Price! Best Price!" works in this case.
Amazon is legitimizing the idea with some serious cred. Good.
That said, there are still tons of people who really DO believe that paying 10 times the money for a cable really does give them something better or special or at least something they can brag about to their friends. Nobody "keeping up with the Joneses" is going to brag about Amazon-branded cables. No, they'll want to brag about Monster gold plated oxygenated fiber optic double shielded quad core buzzword cables that cost a lot.
I like this a lot. I just bought a 6' HDMI cable for about $8 the other day from Amazon, and that was after I tried to buy locally from Best Buy and Radio Shack where the wanted at least $30 for their cheapest cable. The only problem with buying cheap basics from Amazon is that there is a lot of crap on there from unknown manufacturers, so AmazonBasics will actually give me some confidence that there are quality standards in place from a brand I can trust, while still getting a good price.
Guys I'm going to blatently plug where I get all my cables from (audio / video /etc.) - monoprice.com. I have never seen any cable prices lower (consistently). I just bought a 15' hdmi, 6' component, and 6' optical cable for $12 (inc. shipping).
Again, monoprice.com
(later receives bags of internet monies in the mail)
@AT203: "We are putting our name on products that are already sold on our own website so that consumers can confidently buy $3 cables for $8." "Also, those vendors that sell these $3 cables for $15+ can suck it down."
@HBOC: Meh. It's BB $2.38 Belkin USB 1Meter cables marked up to $24.95 that lead me to the intertubes to purchase ALL my electronics. Yeah, I'm with ya on Monoprice...
It all evens out in the end. The board members will rightfully get their hard-earned million dollar bonuses for driving the company into the ground. Hey, nobody said it was easy to execute horrible strategies.
09/21/09
Amazon is legitimizing the idea with some serious cred. Good.
That said, there are still tons of people who really DO believe that paying 10 times the money for a cable really does give them something better or special or at least something they can brag about to their friends. Nobody "keeping up with the Joneses" is going to brag about Amazon-branded cables. No, they'll want to brag about Monster gold plated oxygenated fiber optic double shielded quad core buzzword cables that cost a lot.
09/20/09
09/20/09
09/20/09
Again, monoprice.com
(later receives bags of internet monies in the mail)
09/21/09
09/20/09
09/20/09
09/20/09
09/20/09
I challenge anyone to find that good of deal anywhere.
And the cable isnt actually that bad. does the job well. and no static or feedback.
11/05/08
11/05/08
I also love how they try to sell you the stupid waranties. NO i DONT want a warranty on my XBOX 360 game.
11/05/08
11/05/08