I recently decided that it would be a great idea to buy a car charger for my iPhone . Although the battery in the iPhone usually lasts a full day with almost constant use, I typically find myself in the red zone when I am on the road and need the phone the most.
Just by chance, while in a Walgreens store buying another item, I noticed iPhone car charger plugs and sync cables near the checkout counter. The price seemed right so I purchased the charger for $5.00 and the related cable for $8.00. Total price with tax came out to $13.83. The product, pictured below, worked great and I thought I got a fairly good deal.
Walgreens product
What seemed like a good deal suddenly looked like a bad deal after I happened to shop the same items on Amazon. For what looked like the exact same item from Walgreens, the price of the USB car charger was a ridiculously low $0.99 cents and the price of the sync and charging cable was only $0.95. Even more ridiculous was the fact that their was zero shipping and handling and zero sales tax. The items are shipped direct from Hong Kong and take about two weeks to arrive. Waiting a bit saves you a huge 86% or $11.89.
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GTMax Mini USB Car Charger Vehicle Power Adapter – Hot Pink for Apple iPhone 4 4G 16GB... |
$0.99 |
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USB Sync & Charging Cable (Hot Pink) for Iphone apple |
$0.95 |
Although the items appeared to be the same, how could it be possible for the price to be that different? Surely, there had to be a catch or the Amazon product was somehow vastly inferior even though it looked the same. Curious to find out, I ordered both items which I received after the estimated two weeks delivery time. The items appeared to be exactly the same, other than the color (see below) and the product worked just as well as the items from Walgreens.
Amazon
As a consumer, I like to save money like anyone else but am baffled by the price discrepancy. How can someone spend time packing and shipping a product, pay postage to send the item to the other side of the world and manage to undercut the pricing at Walgreens by 86%?? If anyone has insights on this, please share it in the Comments section.
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