TV Makers Pushing Super Bowl, But Clock Ticking Down on Feb. 2 Delivery
TV makers looking to push out inventories of last year’s sets have jumped on the football theme in advance of Super Bowl Sunday, we found in a scan of manufacturers’ e-commerce sites Friday, but getting those products to homes in time for the actual game was another story.
Under the “Get ready for the big game” banner, Samsung showed steep “limited time online offers) for a wide range of models, including $1,800 off on the UN75F6300AF 75-incher. Samsung passed the savings on to Walmart, which cart-priced the model for $2,697, clipping the Samsung web price by $2, but the TV wasn’t available for delivery until Feb. 7, five days after the game. We called Samsung’s customer care center to see if we could get the TV by the Super Bowl, and the rep told us “pretty much no way” on the 75-inch, but he could assure us a “much higher chance” of getting a 46-inch or smaller TV via the company’s standard FedEx shipping plan.
Sony’s TV page didn’t reference the Super Bowl in text, but the lead TV photo showed two teams lined up for play at the line of scrimmage. Football was the implied theme and 4K Ultra HD was the stated theme with the promise of 33 percent off ("Big game savings") with free white glove delivery, a $149 value. A Sony customer support rep initially told us by phone “it would be pushing it” to get delivery by the Super Bowl based on the standard five- to seven-day shipping time, but then he had us hold while he checked with a supervisor. He came back “on good authority” that based on our location we could get the TV if we ordered that day. Starting price at Sony for 4K is $2,999 for a 55-inch model.
Panasonic appeared to have sold out of plasma models at its website Friday. The only TV shown under Panasonic’s “Big Game Savings” was the premium TC-L65WT600 65-inch Ultra HD TV, shown with a minimum advertised price of $4,999 matched at Best Buy. When we tried to click on any of the plasma TV models, there was no option to buy. Instead, we could enter a ZIP code to find a local dealer stocking the product. We could buy the TC-P65ST60 plasma, which Panasonic showed as the first TV to win a CNET five-star rating, at three Best Buy stores in the New York area.
Toshiba didn’t have a lot of realistic big-screen TV inventory for our timeframe. The company’s Ultra HD TVs started at $16,999, far exceeding prices from Sony, LG, Panasonic and Samsung. The largest 1080p TV in its supply was a 50-inch model that a live chat rep told us was in stock and could be delivered in three to five business days with free shipping for its $699 price tag.
LG doesn’t sell from its site and didn’t promote the Super Bowl theme on its TV page. For purchases, it asked for a ZIP code and directed us to dealers in the area for purchase.
Vizio’s “Score Home Field Advantage” theme led to “special” prices on its TV pages including its 70-inch E701i-A3 TV, discounted by $200 to $1,499, the same price offered at Best Buy. The timeline for products ordered through vizio.com is seven to 10 business days, a chat rep told us, and no expedited shipping is available. “The 31st is only five business days, and Super Bowl is the 1st weekend in February,” she said. “So I cannot say that you would for sure get it by then.”