Pre drops to $79.99 at Walmart
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted September 26th 2009 1:09PM
posted September 26th 2009 1:09PM
[Via everythingpre]
posted September 26th 2009 1:09PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
walmart is terrible
. . . and yet, people still go there. Or shop there online. Can anyone guess why?
I'm off to walmart now to buy some crap...
wal mart is terrible.
but I shop there. I just judge all the other shoppers to feel better.
Ever been to peopleofwalmart.com?
Walmart is not as terrible as the Pre. Palm can't give that Pre dog away! Another iPhone wannabe bites the dust.
Despite how much I shop there for the prices, I also find myself hating walmart. I think the source of all the hatred towards this company is not the great deals, but the long lines, lack of service or friendlyness from 97.9% of the company working there, and the massive amount of people always crowding in the store. Walmart brings the worst of people in all ways, shapes, and forms.
And yet, we can't find ourselves stopping, due to the damn prices.
Agreed with everything that's been said (except for the Apple fanboy): Walmart=pit of Hell, but we're broke-a$$-broke, so we shop there anyway. I'm intrigued by peopleofwalmart . . . will have to check that out.
Back on topic . . . I looked up the $80 Pre deal . . .
$80 gets you the Pre, car charger, screen protector, BT headset, clear case
$99/mo Sprint Simply Everything is unlimited voice, data, and stuff like NFL and NASCAR coverage
Sounds pretty good to me. If Sprint coverage in my area didn't suck so much, I'd be all over this b1tch.
If you don't call landline numbers, you're better off with the $70 Everything Data 450 plan which also gives you unlimited calling to all mobile numbers in addition to 450 minutes for landlines.
Walmart may be terrible but LetsTalk.com, the place ACTUALLY selling the Pre (in Walmart's name), is just fine by me. Their rebate terms are kinda odious in this case but that price is fine (I've bought fro them in the past and would not hesitate to do so again...albeit not a Pre...maybe a Cliq or Motoorla's NEXT cool Android phone coming soon).
The most important thing is the fact that walmart can afford to sell the phone for $80, aka not make any money on it, because what they lack in profit margin, they make up in volume. They're putting every other company out of business. If they haven't already, they plan to.
Walmart aims to Destroy its Remaining Competition:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-pr/993372-walmart-aims-destroy-its-remaining-competition.html
Then the Pre fits right in there :-P
Not really, I'm just glad I bought a 3GS instead.
Yes, because comparing Health Care to a cellphone is a totally valid comparison.
@ DOLT, I mean Dolphz..
You want dirt cheap prices AND Service? Who the fack do you think you are?
You want people to cater to your every whim go and buy your items at a boutique and pay $89 for a T-shirt, $5 for a can of peas and $100 for baked bread...
If you are too stupid to know what the fack to buy then you need to die... There is too much service in this world... Use the facking internet to research the product, go in Wal-Mart, scan the price, go to the cash, give your credit card and go home and STFU...
You people are stupid beyond belief...
I'll have to agree. Not until Palm returns the stolen USB vendor id.
woof, woof.
$79??! That's sort of expensive. Some guy on my block was selling Palm Pres out of his garage for $50.
So, are early Palm Pre buyers up in arms about being cheated that they over-paid for their cellphones. I doubt it. That's just called the bragging rights tax for being the first to show off how cool they are.
The price drop pales in comparison to what the iPhone went through.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_economy,_stupid
so? i still don't want one
What exactly is Palm thinking allowing this? Not a good idea in my opinion, $99 was already too low. Isn't the Pre supposed to be their top tier phone?
Obviously they're desperate and hurting for sales. If they just emulated the Apple stores and had around 4-8 activated units on display in all their stores, they'd probably be flying off the shelves. They're acting just like they're embarrassed of their product, and people will just as soon get a Blackberry Storm as one of these unless they get a chance to see the difference firsthand.
It's still mail in rebate, but really there is no reason to drop the Pre to $99 (or $79). Even to $150 is enough of a drop. This is too much price pressure for the Pixi and all it does is devalue the Pre. Maybe the sales really are dismal, I mean even t-mobile is sticking to their pricing for the myTouch and that phone has worst hardware.
dohnuts: Apple has way more $$$ to push their stores. Palm needs the cash to stay alive, not to push Palm stores. Although, I agree with you, if they put the Pre on a pedestal, put up sacred demo units in new Palm stores in the mall, they would certainly fly off the shelves. It's bad enough they can't get demo units in their own stores, and popular stores like Best Buy.
My guess: They're seeing a drop off in sales in the US, and are worried that the next quarter's sales will look worse than last quarter, even with Pixi. That would expose their real presence of WebOS hardware.
Yeah, they have smaller retail area available (and less funds), so you're right, having 4-8 on display really isn't all that feasible. It's killing me to see a good product be ruined by ancient cell phone sales policies though... just one or two on display would work much better than price cuts.
@ Donuts and Levi: Even one powered and active in the stores would do the job! It looks cool sitting there with the little sticker covering the screen, but watching demos on youtube really makes you say, damn! i want one! I just don't think they're doing enough in store to sell these.
This is not a price drop!
The Palm Pre is priced at $149.99. Walmart and others get $300 for every Palm Pre they sell. If they offer the phone for $79.99, they will make $180 profit. They are getting a lot of free advertising for this offer, so their marketing cost for a lot of the sales they get is $0. Walmart is competing against BestBuy, Amazon, and others.
I own a Palm Pre and I think this offer is great. The Phone is currently selling great and more people will buy the phone at this price. This is good for all owners of the Pre since the increased sales will attract more buyers and developers to this platform.
Palm is thinking "Survive!". They CANNOT resist this train barreling down the track. They must match "its speed". Can Palm survive on 15% or lower margins on their devices? Today, no, a year down the line, maybe. Right now Palm is losing money hand over fist. If it were not for literally massive infusions of "free" money they would already be out of business. But those massive infusions have given Palm something more precious than a gee-whiz device - they have given Palm time. Maybe within that time - a year or more - they can come up with a device that CAN make them money with 15% margins - or, unlikely, come up with a device that will bring in 30% margins again.
But when the competition offers, say, a Cliq for free, Palm =has= to price match it.
I expect the Pre to be free by January latest - given the dramatic multiple drops since the not long ago introduction of the device, it may be free by November.
hopefully the prices drops are an indicator of a larger capacity pre, from 8gig to 16gig
palm likely does not care. Palm makes the profit as dictated by their agreement with walmart which dictates how much walmart would subsize. Walmart may be willing to subsidize a large % of the phone in order to take their percentage of the deal with sprint. Palm may have agreed to a wide range of possible pricings from $299 on down to free. And most of the time a cell company won't mind if a carrier or a reseller agrees to front all the price of the phone. it just means they make more profit. Especially if its and expensive phone that's moving off of shelves like the Pre is. The answer to why they allow it is assuming they are fronting the added rebate it's profitable for Palm.
That's because a 16gb and 32gb Pre is going to drop and NOV
Palm has to compete. If they were selling well at $200 they would not have dropped the price. The comparable low end iPhone model (8GB) is $99 and can be found at $49 often. Palm can't really justify a $100+ premium for the Pre. It's a pretty good competitor to the iPhone but it's not $100 better. You could argue the total cost of ownership is lower on a 2 year contract with the Pre and that's probably true but up front price is what most people look at. I don't know why they haven't released a 16GB and/or 32GB model -- probably because Palm doesn't really accept or understand that people want to use SmartPhones as media players. A lot of people simply wouldn't consider an 8GB non-expandable media player at this point -- at 16 or 32GB expandability isn't quite as important. (although a whole set of people would disagree with that too -- again Palm offers them no product to buy)
firesale.
next question?
If only it would come to Verizon.
I couldn't agree more.
What is going to happen with the Pixi then? $79.99 for a Pre? That puts the Pixi at.... Free?!
Free on $1200 contract.
one day...people will discover it's all about the monthly plans..
Exactly. The initial price in the store is irrelevant. What's a saving of $20 when the monthly plan is $75-90 x 24 mos? Are we that dumb? This may well be the prelude to a 16 GB version but you cut prices when that device hits stores, not before..... (and then we'll get people whining about having just bought an 8Gb phone and its already outta date).
Sure it is, as long as it's not a premium product. The Pre's materials costs alone are $170. Going mostly with a subsidy spread out over the life of a 2-year contract is not a good way to make that money back. Palm's next earnings report is going to make the recent RIM report look like a straight-A student's report card.
Yeah, right... because what other companies sell the Pre for really affects Palm's bottom line. I've got news for you, Palm sells the device to stores for $400 or so, regardless of what the store prices it at.
Right, and Sprint has the cheapest plans of any national carrier. See Anymobile, Anytime.
I pay about $50/month (not counting fees/taxes) for my cable Internet. For that I get a BUNCH of email addresses, webmail, SMTP/POP mail, USENET (does anyone use USENET anymore really?), high-bandwidth extreme-high-caps data AND I have multiple devices connected on that pipe.
Right now, I have a couple featurephones with NO plan data, NO plan email, no plan NUTHIN' except 500 minutes and it costs me about $70/month (WITH fees and taxes).
When wireless carriers give me everything that cable provider gives me for a similar price maybe I'll get a smartphone or two.
Maybe next year?
BTW - I paid full price for each one of the devices that hooks into my $50/month "plan" - I wouldn't mind doing THAT with phones, either, if the plan cost $50/month for as many devices as I could connect.
Remember all the outrage when Apple dropped the price of the 2G iPhone? And the subsequent drama when the 3GS came out? Yea...
yeah. somehow these palm pre owners arent freaking out. apparently only apple is held to this arbitrary standard. such utter s**t
I think we're dealing with an entirely different set of expectations with the two phones.
The iPhone was hotly anticipated by a much larger crowd, and it was still viewed as a premium, must-have phone at the time of its price cut.
The Pre, on the other hand, is viewed as a small step towards Palm's recovery, and WebOS is what's being touted as the greatest thing. The thing is, people don't have a real great grasp on the value of software, or at least don't think of it as something to spend hundreds of dollars on.
The difference is you have a lot of zealous followers with the iPhone who believe in Apple like a religion. A lot of the people who complained about the price drop were the early adopters who trusted Apple. With the Pre, they treat it just as another phone. Also this price drop isn't nearly as severe as the iPhone one and it isn't done by the original store; it is still $150 at Sprint.
@Jake: So you classify all people who love their iPhones zealots who follow Apple religiously? You can't explain it's popularity because everyone should think like you ... So if they don't they must be mindless zealots?
I have never owned an Apple product, nor have I ever followed the company. I love mobile phones and fell in love with the apps on iPhone. Both productive and entertainment. So just because I happen to love my iPhone 3Gs I'm a religious Apple zealot?
Apple isn't like a religion. Apple is a religion. Maybe better than a religion because you don't have to die to get your eternal reward since you can use your Apple devices right here on Earth. No WinMo or Symbian cellphone will ever be considered a Jesus phone. They would be more like a Satan phone.
Our father (Steve Jobs), who art in Cupertino, hallowed be thy name. I'm on my way to church tomorrow. Early service at Apple Cube Store on 5th Ave to receive some Apple sacraments, you know, iPod Touch, iPod Nano, etc.
Kneel and cross yourself before entering: http://www.apple.com/retail/fifthavenue/
St. Peter's Basilica never looked that grand and definitely out of fashion.
i'll take two