One of the great ways that consumers can save money on a computer purchase is through rebates. These are offers for cash back on the purchase of a product either from a manufacturer or a retailer. This can often make the difference between where to buy a product. Rebates have their downsides as well that can make them difficult to use and work with. This guide will help try to explain how manufacturers, retailers and consumers can use them to maximize their value.
What are Rebates and How They Work
Rebates are essentially a form of cash back to the consumer for the purchase of a product. They are used as an incentive to try and get consumers to buy the products. Retailers and manufacturers really like to use them as they have certain advantages for them in making products more attractive to consumers.
They are most effective in helping to sell products because the perceived out the door cost is much lower. For example, a $500 monitor might have a $100 rebate. The retailer then advertises the product as $400 that bring more people to buy the product. The fine print of course mentions the rebate so the consumer ends up spending $500 in order to purchase it. The consumer then has to fill out paperwork according to the rebate to then receive a check for the $100 rebate generally four to eight weeks later.
For the rebate to be paid out, the consumer must follow a set of rules and instructions in order to qualify for it. The most common conditions for a rebate are purchase between a set of dates, purchasing a combination of items such as a computer plus printer, sending in a completed rebate form, inclusion of the original UPC label from the product boxes and a copy of the original purchase receipt. These are generally referred to as mail-in rebates as all this has to be sent in via mail to an address for processing.
Instant rebates are a fairly new development and are much kinder for the consumer. Essentially they remove the need for the paperwork to be mailed in. Much of the same information is collected by the retailer and then amount of the rebate deducted from the purchase price. This essentially provides consumers with an immediate savings.
Manufacturer vs. Retailer
Consumers will generally find rebates offered from one of two sources. Manufacturer rebates are the most common and are handled by the manufacturer. They are offered to help spur the sales of a particular product either because of competition from another company or because they have excess inventory. Retailer offers are not affiliated with a manufacturer but are handled by the retailer. These are typically done to move product out of a retailers warehouse. What's the difference? Not much really. It just depends on who is the one providing the cash back to the consumer.
Sometimes a consumer might run across multiple rebates for a single product. This can cause problems as the advertised price with rebates of the product is lower, but consumers might only be able to get one of the two rebates. Why? Well, if both require the original UPC label, a product only has a single label. This means that only one of the two can have the conditions fully met. If one of the two is an instant rebate, then it isn't an issue.
Drawbacks to Rebates
As previously mentioned, most rebates actually have a higher out the door cost as you have to wait for a check to be mailed back to you. There are other drawbacks to the use of rebates for consumers as well. One issue might be information privacy. In order to receive a rebate, consumers have to give a fair amount of information. Now, some of this is for processing, but it also gives companies information and demographics that help them to sell future products. Since much of this information is gathered when a product is registered, it isn't too much of a problem for many people.
The big drawback to them is the hassle and this is what the companies are counting on. In fact, many consumers either fail to meet the conditions for a rebate or fail to return the rebate form altogether. This means the companies benefited from the lower advertised price but ended up receiving the full purchase amount from the consumers.
Another thing that many people don't consider when purchasing a product with a rebate is the fact that the rebate essentially removes any ability to return a product. Once a UPC label has been removed from a package, that product can no longer be returned or resold by a retailer. This is to protect a retailer from an individual buying a product, submitting a rebate and then returning the product but still receiving the rebate.
What to Remember When Buying With Rebates
As rebates become a much more common method for retailers and manufacturers to help move computer products, consumers stand to benefit greatly from added savings. Before a consumer does go ahead and make a purchase of a laptop, desktop or computer peripheral that has a rebate, they need to ask themselves a few questions:
- What is the out the door cost of the product(s)?
- What are the conditions that need to be meet to get the rebate?
- Is the product something that I really would purchase even if I'm rejected for the rebate?
- Is this rebate really going to make it less expensive than via another source?
If all of these questions can be answered by the consumer to their satisfaction, then it is generally in their best interest to purchase the product with the rebate. They just need to also be committed to actually taking the extra time to make sure they will not be rejected.
