Pre-Super Bowl, Big-Screen TVs Sport Steep Discounts at Retail

"Big” is the theme of TV set discounts this week as retailers use the Big Game as a spur to drive store traffic -- in-store and online -- prior to Super Bowl Sunday. The front page of Target’s weekly circular trumpeted “Big Game Deals” and “Make the Big Game Bigger,” in a sale where every HDTV has been discounted, it said. In hhgregg’s Super Sale XLVII, prices advertised on the opening page of an e-mail promotion as “up to 30 percent off” actually exceeded those discount percentages by a substantial margin, we found in some cases.

Some of the biggest discounts at hhgregg this week are on larger screen sizes that would be expected to retain higher pricing. But Sharp’s LED-based LC60LE600U is on sale at hhgregg this week for $899, nearly half off its $1,699 suggested retail price, according to the website.

Hhgregg also revived its free TV program in an effort to push its furniture lineup while easing TV inventories. Customers who spend $999 to $2,498 on furniture get $200 reimbursement by mail when they buy a 32-inch TV, or $300 back on the purchase of a 39-inch TV and $2,499 in furniture, according to the ad on the website.

Among top brands at Target, Sharp’s 70-inch LC70LE640U smart LED-lit TV took a 20 percent price cut to $1,999 from $2,499 when purchased online, and the Sharp LC52LE640U was trimmed by $200 to $999. Target sold out of Sharp’s 60-inch model in the same series online, but the in-store price was discounted 27 percent to $1,099.

Pages two and three of Target’s circular feature Samsung, LG, Vizio, Philips and Westinghouse TVs on sale and a blurb announces a discount even on installation of larger size TVs. The standard installation price has been cut for the week from $99 to $25 for delivery and setup of TVs 50 inches and larger, Target said. Highlight discounts are the Vizio E601i-A3 60-inch LED-lit smart TV, slashed 31 percent to $899 and a Samsung LED-based 40-inch TV whittled down 27 percent to $499.

At Best Buy, “big game” discounts this week run from $100-$1,100, according to the website’s splash page. Samsung 55-inch LED-lit TVs were slashed 35 percent to $899, while the high-end 55-inch smart 3D 240Hz smart model comes in at a 42 percent discount to $1,499. In the 65-inch screen size, a Samsung LED-lit LCD model is 30 percent off at Best Buy, selling this week for $2,199, and a 60-inch 3D smart TV was cut 37 percent, or $1,000 to $1,699, according to ads. Amazon, meanwhile, which was not headlining with Super Bowl TV deals Monday, undercut the 60-inch model Best Buy discounted to $1,699 by $2.

Specialty dealers we spoke to were avoiding the fray this week. Bjorn’s in San Antonio is using the football theme to drive traffic to its store to see its new Sony section and the Sony 84-inch Ultra HD TV. Bjorn’s commercials, on TV and radio, “aren’t to sell TVs” but to push the store’s re-launched Sony store within a store, Marketing Manager Kris Dybdahl told us.

At Stereo East, in Frisco, Texas, the store wanted to feature the Sony 84-inch but the set hasn’t arrived and “time is fading,” said David Berman, vice president-sales and operations. But matching prices with the big stores isn’t part of the pre-game strategy Berman said, saying the store is positioning itself as a “high-end flat-panel leader, the 4K leader” and “the guys that can get it in before Super Bowl.” Berman attributed steep discounting this week to heavy rebates manufacturers are offering volume dealers. Big-brand companies are taking “a lot of the inventory they promoted during the holidays that they still have quantities of and putting heavy rebates on them to the dealers,” Berman said. He cited the Samsung 55-inch 7100 that was a “two-grand product during the holidays that’s $1,500 for the Super Bowl.” To get the price for that rebate, dealers had to buy within a certain seven-day window from Samsung or the distributor “and I don’t know that a lot of dealers are cash-strong enough after their Christmas holidays to be able to make those purchases,” Berman said.

Richard Glikes, president of Azione Unlimited, a buying group for specialty AV dealers with a custom focus, compared Super Bowl pricing strategies to those of Black Friday. Sears, Best Buy, hhgregg and other regional chains have the opportunity to buy in quantity, he said. “Volume retailers order “fighter models” of TVs months in advance ahead of the big game to lure customers into stores and then try to upsell to a higher model when customers are in store, Glikes said. Other models are overstocks retailers are trying to blow out, he said. Azione dealers “won’t participate” in the pricing wars, Glikes said, because they can’t get the volume purchase deals to compete, and because Azione dealers’ customers tend not to be price watchers, he said. “Our customers don’t come in looking for a 50-inch TV for $499, he said. Instead, they want “a big TV, the best picture and a brand I'm familiar with,” he said.