The Battle for users has come to a point of giving free laptops

hazephase · #1 07-23-2007, 05:20 AM

First it was France Telecom's Orange a week back and this week its Carphone Warehouse that are giving away free laptops .
A month back there was a cry of 'free' broadband , today laptop tomorrow????

JenniP · #2 07-23-2007, 11:43 AM

Its an old ploy to tie the customer to you as long as possible. They may say the laptop is worth for example £300, but take out the VAT, get a trade price your looking more at £200.

If by spending £200 you get a guaranteed £15 per month for 2 years, that's 360 pounds, so that's 160 pounds made from that customer.

So from that £160 you need to pay for the broadband itself, which I imagine will take most of that. However most of these people will stay after the contract ends so over the lifetime of the customer that original £200 would be quite a good investment.

Jen

James · #3 08-18-2007, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by JenniP

Its an old ploy to tie the customer to you as long as possible. They may say the laptop is worth for example £300, but take out the VAT, get a trade price your looking more at £200.

If by spending £200 you get a guaranteed £15 per month for 2 years, that's 360 pounds, so that's 160 pounds made from that customer.

So from that £160 you need to pay for the broadband itself, which I imagine will take most of that. However most of these people will stay after the contract ends so over the lifetime of the customer that original £200 would be quite a good investment.

Jen

Spot on. The computer's are pretty much end of the line models (especially the "free" ones) so would probably be worth less than £200. Also the type of customer who is not worried about a two year deal will be the type of customer who is far more likely to stay loyal to you.

hazephase · #4 08-19-2007, 10:21 AM

The new story is they have stopped giving the laptops . What do you think happened there ? did they run out of laptops? or did they get enough of people ?

James · #5 08-19-2007, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by hazephase

The new story is they have stopped giving the laptops . What do you think happened there ? did they run out of laptops? or did they get enough of people ?

Oh dear. It seems that I missed the boat on that one. I wanted to go for something like this.

I am sure with the plummeting price of PCs that this chance will come around some time soon.

James · #6 08-19-2007, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by James

Oh dear. It seems that I missed the boat on that one. I wanted to go for something like this.

I am sure with the plummeting price of PCs that this chance will come around some time soon.

Just to confirm this, if you go to this page:

Get a free laptop from PC World when you sign up to Orange Broadband.

.. You will see a message confirming tha the deal is now over. I suppose that they must have hit the sales targets.

london · #7 08-30-2007, 04:40 AM

The offer of giving the laptops free of cost are new to me. Another scheme in which a year long connectivity to broad band free with laptop comes to my notice

James · #8 09-06-2007, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by london

The offer of giving the laptops free of cost are new to me. Another scheme in which a year long connectivity to broad band free with laptop comes to my notice

Only a year for a free laptop? Do you have any details for that, I could very well be interested in that as most of these deals are for two years.

blasted · #9 11-27-2007, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by James

Just to confirm this, if you go to this page:

Get a free laptop from PC World when you sign up to Orange Broadband.

.. You will see a message confirming tha the deal is now over. I suppose that they must have hit the sales targets.

Orange must be pretty desperate doing offers like this i mean giving away free laptops is an unusual way of advertising.However, its unique and it may just be succesful.Has anyone joined cause of this offer please?