I cannot ever remember a time period in the last 20 years in which prices ever went down. Why would you expect manuf. to lower their prices when their costs have gone up too?

This year saw several adjustmets upwards for fuel, raw material, and currency increases.

You are going to see another round of hikes real soon with the turn and comming year. 5-10% is typical, some are going as high as 30% this year.

All costs are down, so prices are coming down over the long haul. Heating and gas are down, importing parts costs less, ocean transport is down, interest rates are down (cost of financing/carrying inventory). No costs are up.

To avoid deflation that triggers more deflation, in some markets they will raise prices so that those who like to pay full price can do so, and they will also increase behind the scenes incentives to encourage hard selling and grouped purchases. Those who bargain hunt will uncover ways to pay less, too. Specials will be the order of the day. IF you can always get something on special somewhere with some coupon or other "deal" and no-one ever needs to pay full price, what use is full-list-price? It helps those who collect statistics about prices and compile the price index, so they don't have to declare there is deflation, and it helps those who have to do the accounting since they have a padding to make use of in declaring their use of financing to stakeholders.

Somebody has to pay full list price, so it may as well be the average reader who is encouraged to be nice. Those who feel they are getting a deal, getting a price break, can also feel good when they compare it to "full list price".

Just to add to the weirdness in pricing, one fridge manufacturer displays TWO prices on their web site for each and every product. E.g.
List Price $2190
MSRP $1755
Then, in real life you can get each fridge for much less than that from retailers.

So, yes, prices are going up, and yes, you can buy it for less.

David

David, I agree with your conclusion that prices are going up but one can still find a deal, but not how you arrived at it.

Heating gas is up in my neighborhoods in the Southeast, so is water and electricity. My containers from Europe are up not down, if yours are please tell me who you use. Gasoline, while down a lot in the last 30-4o days is still up in the 1 year timeframe and way up in the 2 year frame. Steel and copper costs are through the roof. Palstics are high too. All of these go into appliances. Price resets don't happen overnite on durable goods especially aliances. Computers and memory are an exception. That's because for the most part these things aren't comodities with volatility. The list price vs. the manuf. sug retail is simply smoke an mirrors just like the majority of auto slaes. What's the price of your last new car, you probaly have little idea of the TRUE cost. UMRP is an attempt to level the playing field even if it rubs people the wrong way. Consumers who keep fighting for the turkish bazzar pricing may find themselves buying appliances like autos - with uber complex sales agreements and pricing that will ultimately cost them more in the end.

I work for a large industrial supply distributor. Fasteners are our main business.

At the end of August, I compiled a large quote for a customer to supply their OEM fasteners. Most of these will be imported from Asia. We are now moving forward and have had to requote everything because so much time had passed. I got part of the numbers back today.

Almost across the board, everything has decreased in price. Some parts decreased as much as 50%, while I think the average was around 10% to 15%. The biggest drops came in stainless steel. On the requote, we did not shop around or go to different suppliers. Everything was exactly the same; the only thing that changed was the cost of materials.

So yes, prices of raw materials are indeed coming down. I am not an expert on this stuff, though, so I have no idea how it will effect retail prices on durable goods. I am guessing there will be little to no immediate impact. My guess is manufacturers will use the lower costs (if they even realize them at all, immediately; much of these materials may be bought on a contract) to add to their bottom line until the recession deepens (it will) and the market forces them to lower prices since people simply are not buying big ticket items.

So I wouldn't look for this drop in material costs to have a significant impact on the retail end for another quarter or so.

Or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about. (shrug)

we are going all Kitchen Aid.Appreciate any input.

don't go with "all kitchen aid". don't go with "all" anything. get good appliances that have good track records. they don't need to match.

we put down deposits on a few of our appliance choices as our salesman alerted me to "scheduled" cost increases. whatever. it's been my experience that everything is down and dropping ...except appliances. makes no sense to me. doesn't really matter as i can change the order anytime i want or call the whole thing off. i shopped around to six different appliance stores and this particular place (top line, westfield, nj) gave me the best prices.