It may be April fool’s day, but these prices are no joke. JB Hi Fi has just slashed the price of the newly released Nintendo 3DS to $298 and looks to be a force to be reckoned with if market analysts are to be believed.
And Harvey’s are hot on its heels with 40 per cent off laptops.
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JB have slashed the price of the new Nintendo 3DS to $298, cut by more than $50 charged by most other retailers including rivals Harvey Norman and Dick Smith (the RRP is $349).
The price also pulls the rug out from under online rivals, whose lowest price is $338 from mwave.com.au, although when shipping costs are added on the total bill comes to over $350 mark.
In fact, some online stores are charging $400 and above for Nintendo’s latest release.
And it’s not just game consoles that are going cheap this weekend.
Harvey Norman has cut 40 per cent off its Toshiba laptop range, including the Qosmio F60/05E Laptop, Satellite L650 and C650D.
According to its website, the offer only goes on until tomorrow, Saturday 2nd.
And it’s not just consoles going cheap at JB Hi Fi, who have also cut some of its PC prices, selling Apple Macs at 10 per cent off including the MacBook Air ($1196), MacBook Pro and iMac.
Like Harvey’s the yellow store also has offers on some Toshiba and Samsung notebooks. And this price battle could intensify among the major players further as soon as Harveys brings its online trading site to life, which is set to happen very soon.
This comes as a report out today suggest JB Hi Fi will outperform the market rivals this year as the retail space continues its competitive jostle for market share.
“JB has one of the most successful business models in the listed retail space,” according to analyst Rob Blythe from Macquarie Investments, authors of the report.
“It operates in a high growth market segment, is highly cash generative and self-funds its own expansion plans, driving its strong levels of growth.”
The company said this week it forcasts net profit for the 12 months to June to be $108.5m -$113.5m, compared with the previous forecast of between $134 million and $139 million.
This is on the back of major product releases like the Nintendo 3DS, the much hyped iPad 2 released last Friday and new TV’s by some of the major brands.
Earlier this week, JB Hi Fi shares climbed 7% after the consumer electronics and IT company announced a buyback of much as 10 per cent of its shares.
However, its not all sunny as margins, in the flat panel TV sector in particular, have slumped and performance of several of its Clive Anthony’s stores have been described as “lacklustre.”
Terry Smart, the CEO of JB Hi Fi told ChannelNews that the restructure of the Clive Anthony operation could result in some Clive Anthony stores being rebranded JB Hi Fi while others could be “closed”.
He also said that the company is looking at “store within a store” concepts for some locations with a JB Hi Fi store co-locating with a Clive Anthony store.
