Category Archives: Daily Scribble

My random thoughts of the day.

Daily Scribble

Extended price guarantee

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Many big chain stores in Canada has price guarantee. If something you had purchased is on sales in the next two weeks, you take can get price difference with receipt. Don’t be fooled by the two weeks only price guarantee period and thought you can’t get your money back after two weeks. Most stores also has a 90 days refund period. If the item is on sales in the next 90 days, you can always refund any unused, unopened item in original box with receipt.

Now You may ask how can you refund something if it is already opened, used and even threw away the box. Here is the trick. Most important of all, always keep your receipts. First bring your old receipt to the shop, then buy a new item that’s on sales. Make sure the bar code of the new item is the same as the one on your old receipt. Walk to the customer service straight from the cashier and refund the newly bought item with the old receipt. As long as the bar code is the same, the shop has no way to tell whether you bought the item 89 seconds or 89 days ago. If your screwed up and the bar code is indeed changed. Don’t worry, you can always refund the extra item with the new receipt.

In fact you can use this method to extend the price guarantee period indefinitely. Repeat the above steps right before the 90 days refund period expire to extend the refund period by another 90 days. As long as you remember to check the flyers every week, you can get your money back until they eventually discontinue the item or change the bar code. As long as the bar code is the same, you can even refund an newly bought item from one shop with an old receipt to another shop.

Daily Scribble

Dream kitchen almost comes true

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Technically speaking it is not my dream kitchen, it is Pat’s dream kitchen. Ok, a guy don’t have a dream kitchen, maybe a dream garage, but definitely not a dream kitchen.

For the past two days, I was losing sleep worrying about my $5000 Direct Buy membership fee. I was so worry that it is a scam like many people say online and I have to go through all the trouble to get my money back and worse feeling like an idiot got ripped off. Today after spending three hours meeting with the kitchen designer in Direct Buy, my worry is gone. He is one of the most professional and helpful kitchen designer I have met, much better than those at Home Depot or the Chinese cabinet contractors. Most important of all, their claim of 40% saving in kitchen cabinet is true. I will recoup my membership fee just from the kitchen alone. We don’t have the final quote yet, because we are still fine tuning kitchen design idea. Judging from the estimate, we are $2000 ahead in saving taking the the membership fee and 15% sales discount in Home Depot. The price is comparable to Chinese cabinet contractors but we are getting cabinets from Kitchen Craft.

I spent some time study their catalog, checking the price against retail stores. The price is ok in general. Some stuff is pretty good deal, some stuff are actually more expensive. It beats those boutique shop or designer shops charging clueless customers fat margin, but does not give save much pitching against big chain stores, especially when they are on sales. Big appliance has good deals, too bad that we don’t need to upgrading our appliances.

I have booked the second appointment with the kitchen designer to go over the details. So far I am happy with what I got from Direct Buy. Let’s see can they keep up with my expectation. I will keep readers posted with my Direct Buy adventure.

P.S. Direct Buy is a franchise and the membership fee and catalog selection is different from location to location. I read from Internet, some location is pretty bad. My location seems pretty good so far. Always get opinions from existing members in your location before making your decision.

Daily Scribble

Direct Buy, scam or big saving?

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Can you believe I just pay $5000 for a membership at Direct Buy, hoping to recoup my membership fee from the saving I will get from the deep discounted catalog items through Direct Buy? At first, it sounds like a scam, I thought so too. CBC news even made a report on this company trying to uncover the scam. Internet forum has very mixed review. Someone call it out right fraud but someone think it is a good deal.

The idea of the Direct Buy is quite simple. You pay the heft membership fee, in return you buy product at manufacturer price plus 8% handling fee and freight fee. Retail shop make their profit from the mark up on the goods they are selling. Direct Buy basically makes money from membership fee. It has minimal customer service. You don’t get any sales who try to sell you stuff or answer your questions. You won’t even see the product you are buying. All you got is a room full of manufacturer catalog and a price. You have to look up all the specification, figure out the part number. You may have to go to retail shop to see the item for real. The staff there only do one thing, help you submit your order form. Then you have to wait for the shipment to come, anywhere from 2-4 weeks. Once you pick up the product, you are on your own to deal with the manufacturer with any warranty problem. You don’t get convenient refund or exchange policy from the retail store.

One thing people complain most is that Direct Buy use the typical high pressure selling tactics. They invite you to an open house, force feed you a video, so testimony form “happy” customers and make you sign the contract right away. The catch is you have to sign up on the spot or they will turn you down. Their claim is to protect their manufacturer price is confidential information, they don’t want shopper use it to leverage against retail shops. At first they refuse to show me the the produce catalog and the price. The sales only willing to quote a few items for me. That does not make sense to me. How can I make decision to spend $5000 without knowing how much I can save?

To keep the long story short, at the end we spent 3 hours in the place. The sales pretty up just gave up persuading me and let me wander the place on my own. I have access to all the catalog and able to check out the price as I like. The catalogs are from known manufacturers, not no name brands. Since I am shopping for furniture and house hold items a lot these days, I recognize many brands from the list. The selection is good, it probably beats any one retail store but can’t beat all retail stores combined. The price is actually pretty good. They are really selling at the cost or very close to the cost. For example, we just bought a Simmons mattress from the Bay on sales, the price of the same mattress at Direct Buy is $780 + 8% handling but not shipping = $842. We pay $715 at the Bay, but that’s on the 2 weeks only the Bay super mattress sales and the Bay somehow made an error in subtracting the box frame from the order to our favor. It should be about $810. The not on sales price at of the mattress is $2000 at the Bay, which is ridiculous. The market price I found when I shop around for the mattress is around $1200.

I check many other things and I am convinced they are real savings. It is probably in the order 20-25% rather than the 40-60% they claim. If I can spend $20000, then I could make my $5000 membership fee worth while. The bottom line is Direct Buy’s price beats non-sales price at retail shop, but probably can’t beat the sales price of big chain stores. You actually get access to many more products than you can find in retail shop but at the same time it limits your choice to their catalogs. The bang of the buck would be on big ticket items the retail store getting a fat margin like furniture, vanities, light fixtures, cabinet, fringe, etc. You won’t save much on small appliance as the chain stores probably get a better deal on sales. Since we are remodeling our kitchen and the cabinet is really cheaper than Home Depot. I decide to give it a try. Although the membership contract says absolutely no refund, by law BC has 10 days cool down period and I know there are court precedence winning against Direct Buy to get your money back within the first 10 days. If after doing more calculation, I could save close to $5000, I will keep my membership otherwise I will cancel it.

Stay tune on my price hunting adventure with Direct Buy. I will keep everyone posted. See whether I turn out to be an idiot got scam $5000 or a smart shopper who saves a lot.

Daily Scribble

Learning how to ride a unicycle – day 2

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Today I was practicing unicycle at tennis court close to home. An empty tennis court is better than parking lot, especially on a sunny afternoon. I am getting better than last time. I feel more comfortable sitting on the unicycle. I am slowly getting the sense of balance. I can peddle forward a few steps before falling off the unicycle. Of course, one of my hand still hold on to the fence all the time.

Riding unicycle is very different than riding a bicycle. When riding a bicycle, you usually use your whole body weight to help you peddle. However, when riding a unicycle, the body weight always stay on top of the seat. You will lose balance if you transfer too much weight on to the peddle. You have to unlearn the body motion of riding a bicycle.

Learning unicycle inspire me a few lessons of life that I can apply them to my daily life. It seems counter-intuitive at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. When you are sitting on a wobbling unicycle, it is human nature to grab something to feel secure. There is a natural tendency to grab on the seat handle. It is a bad idea, you should spread out your arms to help you balance instead. The first lesson is hang on something does not mean you are secured, if the thing you try to hang on needs you to keep it balance.

Many beginners like to look down at the wheel which supports you and which you suppose to keep it up right. However looking down will throw you off balance. Stop paying attention to where you are, focus on your destination and you will be there. The second lesson is don’t let your mind blogged down by everyday details, think about the big picture and the small things will sort themselves out.

Since I am still a learner, I hold on to the fence all the time. Sometimes when I am peddling forward, I am too scare to let go of my hand off the fence. As a result the wheel rotation forward while my hand is stilling holding to the same position of the fence, my body is twisted and I am off balance. The third lesson is if you want to move forward, you have to stop holding the same spot.

Daily Scribble

Learning how to ride a unicycle – day 1

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I always wanted to learn how to ride a unicycle. I have been procrastinating for many years, then I just made up my mind and bought an unicycle. In order to encourage Pat to do more exercise, I promise I will jog with her every week. Since I don’t like jogging myself, I was riding a bicycle while following Pat. However, riding bicycle is too fast, I think maybe I should ride a unicycle instead, so that I can keep with the pace of Pat.

I ordered a 24″ beginner’s unicycle online. It is recommend to learn from a 20″ or 24″. Both size are good for indoor free style tricks or outdoor normal riding. It took me half a hour to put the parts together. I read unicycle tutorials on the web and watched tutorials in youtube to prepare myself. The principle of riding a unicycle is pretty simple. Balance yourself on the seat and don’t fall. The difficult part is building the muscle memory that let you stay in balance.

I tried my first ride today in company’s parking lot today. I picked a wall with fence to lean on. I can mount the unicycle when one of my hand is holding the fence. I tried balance stretching my leg leg and then my right leg. I can rock back and forth a little bit whiling holding the fence and stay on the unicycle for 2-3 minutes before falling off. I am wobbling left and right as well. I am still trying to pick up the feeling of putting all my weight on the seat instead of my foot. That is the key of balancing on unicycle according to the tutorials.

Riding a unicycle is a bit harder than I expected but it should still be well within my reach. It took me 30 minutes to learn how to ride a bicycle when I was eight. I just need to practice every day and I will be jog with Pat on unicycle in a few weeks.