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Upgrading Phones At Costco

patchin

Supporting Member
Well it's time to upgrade our smart phones, so we were considering doing it through Costco. You save money because
1. No upgrade fees ($36x2)
2. Discounted phones ($70x2 for HTC One)
3. Free accessories (Unknown value, may or may not use them)
4. You pay tax on $259 instead of around $500 (saving around $40x2)
So it looks like a savings of around $300 for two phones. Am I missing something? What are the disadvantages to upgrading through Costco?
 
Sprint. Personally I'd rather have Verizon, but we had a really bad experience with Ver. that we haven't gotten over yet.
 
Hi Patchin, I too have Sprint and over the past few years I must say Costco has had some ridiculously cheap prices on newly released phones, much cheaper than any Sprint store and definitely cheaper than any independently owned store. I used to be a tech for Sprint so I've seen the sales structure and how the stores set their prices. Outside of corporate locations it's practically impossible to sell phones that low unless you take a loss on the retail part of your profits (stores get paid commission on the contract you sign/resign and a little profit on the hardware).

So bottom line, if Costco's cheaper than the Sprint website than it's most likely the lowest price you will find, in regards to activation fees and such that's another uncommon thing to have waived, typically that is not negotiable.
I assume Costco simply takes a big profit cut (maybe even a small loss on the handset) with their prices on these phones but I suppose they make up for it with volume and their contract signing commission
 
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