Archive for March, 2010

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How to get Microsoft and eBay to pay for 10-percent of your new Canon Rebel T2i DSLR

Monday, March 1st, 2010
If, like me, you’re excited about the new Canon Rebel T2i DSLR1 and plan to buy one when the price falls a bit, and you’re in the USA, you’re in luck. Though I expect all stores will sell the camera at exactly its MSRP2 for months, I’ve found a way to chop that price down by about 10%.

Ram - Bing

Remember Microsoft Bing? The search engine that Microsoft will pay you to use? That’s step 1.

  1. Go to www.bing.com, sign in or create a “windows live”3 account, then search using bing for popular product lines like “ram” or “xbox”.
  2. Look at the top of the search results for a “Bing cashback” link to eBay like the one I’ve annotated above. Click the words “Bing cashback”.
  3. You’ll be taken to eBay. There’ll be a banner at the top of the page telling you that you’ll get an 8% “Bing cashback” if you purchase the item using eBay’s “Buy it now” link and if you pay via paypal. The key thing to note here is that the cashback happens regardless what item you buy at eBay, it doesn’t have to be RAM or XBox. In your case, search eBay for a Canon T2i.
  4. In your search results, click the “Buy it now” tab to filter your search to only show items that can be purchased using that method.
Ebay Order Details
I wonder how Microsoft cashback actually works. Does the money come from Microsoft? From the participating store (eBay in this case)? Maybe it’s just money rained down by the universe as a reward to people for continuing to go through the motions of participating in the market economy as the walls crumble around us.
Unless you want a gray market product, I’d advise you to be wary of any vendor with less than 99% positive feedback, or who is located overseas, or who doesn’t explicitly state the list of items included in the unopened box and that it comes with a Canon USA Warranty. But there are plenty of legitimate physical camera and electronics stores who use eBay as their internet storefront, and they’re listing the camera for the same price as Amazon and B&H.

Microsoft’s cashback takes a while. But a month or so after your purchase, they’ll deposit the cashback value directly to your paypal account. eBay has their own sort of cashback program going on, called “eBay Bucks”. For your purchase, you’ll earn 2% of its value in eBay Bucks, which can be used for future transactions. So within a month or two after your purchase, you’ll have received 10% of the total in Bing Cashback and eBay bucks.

Ebay Order Details-1

I’m sure if you can wait six months a better deal will come along. Maybe the Canon T2i will be available at Dell Small Business store and you’ll be able to get %15 off buy using a coupon. But if, like me, you’re ready now to replace your several-generations-old DSLR, this is probably not a bad way to go.

  1. At least in part due to its HD video capabilities [↩]
  2. $799 for the body, $899 for the body in a kit with lens [↩]
  3. The terms “windows” and “live” are meaningless Microsoftian buzzwords that are completely unrelated to this context. But the marketing folk at Redmond are only satisfied when those words are platered on top of every product. [↩]

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