Saturday, February 27, 2016

Shopping for a CR1616 battery.

Recently I had to purchase two CR1616 button cell batteries for the car remote controls. I'd not replaced the batteries for a couple of years and thought it was about time I got some new batteries.

I did a quick search of the internet and found the following prices.

Jaycar - $2.95
Masters - $4.90
Chemist Warehouse - $3.49
Officeworks - $4.97
Dick Smith - $7.98
Maxwell - $2.09
Amcal - $2.75

Whilst Maxwell was the cheapest at $2.09, the problem is there's only one store located in Bridge Road Richmond, which is a bit far from Templestowe. Delivery would be $10.51.

I decided to go to the local Amcal and Chemist Warehouse as the prices weren't bad. After travelling  for about half and hour and 14 km I returned home empty handed. Neither had stock. I was going to wait until I was going past one of the other stores.

It was weird. I'd not had batteries in the remote controls for a couple of years and now all of a sudden it had to be done NOW. I decided it really wasn't that important and could wait.

I then decided to check the internet again and found suppliers on eBay. Prices weren't bad and found one selling 5 batteries for $4.99. I really only wanted two and felt the other three would probably go to waste. Delivery was free. In the end I decided since I could not be sure of any of the businesses I'd listed having stock and thus my trips could be a waste of time and fuel, I'd go for the easier option and place an order. A few days later and the batteries arrived.

Whilst some may consider this against the concept of JustLocal, one of my beliefs with JustLocal is that people should not be disadvantaged shopping locally. Had the local businesses had stock I would have bought locally and at a higher price. They didn't and so their service let them down. Some of the businesses had ridiculous prices such as Dick Smith. You'll find the local supermarkets and hardware stores can charge higher prices and that doesn't make sense. They're simply importing the same product you would.

This was actually my first purchase using eBay and I found the result to be more than acceptable. I just wished the local stores held the stock of the items they list on their sites and that would have helped keep the purchase local.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au

No comments:

Post a Comment