Online discounts It is an oft repeated scenario. You return home after having secured a thrilling bargain from the local mall or retail store. You are proud of the bargain you have got yourself. A couple of days later you bump into a friend, colleague or relative and proudly tell them about the steal you managed to get. And then they burst your bubble by telling you that they got the very same product for much cheaper! Their secret – online discounts! This is not a fictional scenario. It has happened to me several times. I have, and more notably my pride has, taken a beating thanks to online discounts. The most recent instance was when I bought myself a laptop for what I thought was a very reasonable, and I might go so far as to say, bargain price. Imagine my consternation when a colleague told me that he got the very same laptop for an online discount of a hundred dollars less! And to add insult to injury, the online discount also netted him a couple of free software titles. I’ve often wondered how online discounts can make the price of an already competitive product much cheaper. Which is why I got online to find the answers. And the answer is as simple as it is brilliant. To understand this, one must first understand how discounts, and especially online discounts work. Put simply, online discounts take advantage of the build on demand philosophy. Firms that offer online discounts are in the very first lace online firms. As such, they don’t have the heavy capital, inventory and stock charges that conventional retailers have. Secondly, online discount firms make use of the build on demand philosophy to order products only when a customer places an order for them. Since they rely heavily on bulk orders, and their transactions each month run into the thousands, they are able to negotiate and get discounted prices from the wholesaler. A part of which they pass on to the customers as online discounts. Finally, online discount sites and stores serve as aggregators for a wide range of products, most of which are interlinked. Dell computers is a fine example of this kind of online discount operation. By building on demand, being a purely online assembler and tying up with various other related products and services, Dell is able to offer online discounts that are much greater than any retail store selling the very same product could. This increases their sales, the customers get online discounts and free goodies and everyone is happy all around. All thanks to the apparent magic of online discounts! But I am wiser now. Each time I see a product going for a bargain at the local mall, I scurry home to check online for online discounts. And I must say I haven’t been disappointed. Now, I too can proudly boast that I manage to get the best deals on all the products I buy thanks to online discounts. Till some coupon toting scum manages to burst my bubble again that is!