Easy pays vs cash price

In a lot of businesses, you are offered x number of easy pays which adds up to a bit dearer than the pay-in-full asking price. QVC make it easy to take up "easy pays" for people who can't afford to pay the exorbitant price all in one go so they divide the exorbitant price by 3 or whatever, and that's what the customer pays each time. Which is all well and good, except it makes me think that people who pay everything all in one go are falling victim to the clever marketing ploy of upholding the exorbitant price when it could be discounted. QVC is laughing all the way to the bank. By collecting the easy pays, which cost them administration fees, they collect the same amount into their coffers which cash customers subsidise by paying up front, so making QVC's accounting much easier and therefore cheaper so profits increase.

Or do you think differently and are just grateful they are socially-minded by helping out their easy pay customers?

I never use EZPay. However, you make a good point that maybe the price could be lower but they choose a price that is divisible perfectly by how ever many EZPays are offered. Even extra pennies off the price would add up over the months.

Mind you, I don’t buy much from QVC nowadays as I usually shop around elsewhere if I see something I like and I invariably find it cheaper.

I don't use easy pay, too easy to buy, buy, buy thinking oh only £19 a month but all those add up before you know you could be paying £50 a month.

Back in the early days would not take my debit card, so I had to pay by cheque. If I did not have the money, I did not buy, simple. Then I got a proper Visa debit, and the idea of paying for 4 or 5 months makes me shudder.

Easy pay encourages poor people to buy products they can't afford. Not always the case, of course.

A certain level of easy pay looks good in their balance sheet - shows income due over the next 2, 3 or 4 months. I suspect they keep a close eye on this when deciding how many and which easy pays to offer.

My online account defaults to easy pay. I don't need to use it, but I do because it's there, and I get a small amount of interest on the split payments, which is better in my bank than theirs. More often than not, the stuff I'm paying for is unopened in my stash when the final payment goes through. Sometimes I think I'll change it to pay up front, but the good thing about Q's is the payments are only once per month. I tried some of the other 'spread the cost' options retailers offer when they first came out and quickly cancelled them as I was irritated by random payments going through every two weeks. Q is the only one I use now, and almost everything seems to be on EP these days.

Yes, default is the first thing when paying online with QVC. When I buy, I really need to pay attention to make sure you tick pay in one. In the old days and even with other online retails, you had to tick to use the easy pay.

I find it concerning that practically every online shopping site offers me some kind of easy pay credit. I understand on higher cost items like Pandora but even on smaller items, there is offered credit. Twenty years ago, I would have been easily tempted. I worry that another credit crunch will explode if people find themselves overreached.
I am fortunate to be able to pay in full on my items but this is a good point that the full price may be inflated in order to allow nil percent interest on easy pays. I do look elsewhere now before I buy. Got a lovely gold paper clip necklace for 30% less than the one on QVC from a jewellers on eBay.

ERICS MUM said:

A certain level of easy pay looks good in their balance sheet - shows income due over the next 2, 3 or 4 months. I suspect they keep a close eye on this when deciding how many and which easy pays to offer.

Click to expand...

Grizelda said:

Easy pay encourages poor people to buy products they can't afford. Not always the case, of course.

Click to expand...

You're both so right. Every decision is for the seller's benefit. Easy pay isn't always easy for hard-pressed buyers who sometimes have to budget carefully to meet all the payments even though Q markets this as for the customer's benefit. It isn't necessarily. The only benefit paying it all at once for the customer is that you don't have to worry about the next few payments being met but there's certainly no cash incentive for their most profitable/easier accounting customers who pay up front. QVC hammers home the easy pay option but never mention this other side. Why would they when they're laughing all the way to the bank?

That’s probably one of the reasons everything has been hiked up in price on the Q

We used to call easy pay buying on the 'never, never'. Being poor is relative of course. I've only used easy pay on one item that I couldn't afford to buy outright. It was a Dyson heater/cooler with filter at more than 600 Euros. I felt I would never stop paying for it. Expensive product but I'm very pleased with it.

donna255 said:

Yes, default is the first thing when paying online with QVC. When I buy, I really need to pay attention to make sure you tick pay in one. In the old days and even with other online retails, you had to tick to use the easy pay.

Click to expand...

I’ve probably misunderstood your post but now, on QVC, you automatically pay in one amount unless you click the other option to use EZPays. It used to be the other way round and you had to select the option to pay in one.

Toril, that shows I haven't bought recently

Toril said:

I’ve probably misunderstood your post but now, on QVC, you automatically pay in one amount unless you click the other option to use EZPays. It used to be the other way round and you had to select the option to pay in one.

Click to expand...

I have a feeling that QVC had to change the default from automatically going to Easypay. Can’t remember if it was customers requests or was a legal requirement.

I just bought the TSV and it wasn't defaulted to easy pay, possibly unselected it preciously though.