Tag: price comparison

Product Review: Kyocera Knives Pros and Cons and Where to Buy

Posted by Brady – October 25, 2009

Kyocera is a Japanese company that designs and manufactures consumer ceramics products.   While ceramic and knife seem hard to be linked together, Kyocera uses ceramics to make knives (not handle but blade), and Kyocera ceramic knives are very popular due to their edge over regular stainless steel peers.

Although the $80 price tag makes Kyocera knives sound pricey, people who experienced it say “you get what you pay for”, and it’s “reasonably priced”.  Since introduction to US market, Kyocera knives have got good feedbacks from its customers including professional chefs.

Pros:

  • Kyocera has a ceramic edge which stays sharp 10 times longer than steel blades.
  • The fine ceramic knife leaves no metallic taste or odor and helps to maintain the freshness of fruit and vegetables.

Cons:

  • You can’t sharpen the blade by yourself
  • Need more care than metal knives

eBay vs. Amazon Price Comparison

Kyocera Revolution Series 2-Piece Paring and Santoku Knife Set, $84.95 with free shipping on Amazon, $89.95 with free shipping including a bamboo cutting board on eBay
Kyocera Revolution Series 7-Inch Professional Chef’s Knife, $84.95 with free shipping on Amazon, $109 with free shipping on eBay

For more ceramic knife choices, check out Amazon best selling ceramic knives.

AmaBay: eBay vs. Amazon price comparison

Posted by Brady – September 26, 2009

AmaBay is an online service created by Linked8 Apps in 2009 to enable online shoppers to easily compare Amazon and eBay prices for any product for all countries covered by Amazon and eBay.  As its name indicates, AmaBay = Ama(zon) + (e)Bay, its search result combines those of Amazon and eBay for a certain keyword in the same screen.

How to Use AmaBay

You can start comparing prices in either of the following ways:

  1. through browser add-ons (AmabayFox for Firefox and AmabayChrome for Google Chrome), this way is the easiest.  The browser add-ons put a small button on browser toolbar or address bar when you are viewing any eBay or Amazon product page, one click on that button will show you the Amazon or eBay prices for that product or similar products.
  2. through AmaBay website (http://amabay.linked8.com), just like how you search a keyword on Google, you go to AmaBay homepage, enter a keyword, then hit search button, then AmaBay will search Amazon and eBay databases and throws out most relevant products from both Amazon and eBay side by side.

Amazon vs. eBay, price and beyond

AmaBay is both a price research tool and a product research tool.  Using this tool, you can research any product and find interesting differences between Amazon and eBay:

Generally, Amazon is more specialized in branded products, due to this reason, Amazon is more often to be chosen to be the official retail channel for well-known brands, such as Microsoft Zune HD video mp3 player.  In addition, Amazon also offers free shipping on any $25 or greater orders and pays return shipping on items shipped by Amazon.com itself.

eBay is more specialized in non-branded, commodity like products, such as car mp3 player FM transmittter, more often than not you can find better deals on eBay than on Amazon for these products.

However, these guidelines are not true in many cases, eBay can offer unbeatable price on branded products for example, Brother QL-570 label printer, while Amazon could offer great deals on non-brand products such as car charger socket power splitter.  Therefore, you want to use amabay to research any individual product before you conclude which retailer offer the best price.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Amazon prices?

There are four types of Amazon prices:

  • Amazon listing featured price
  • Lowest price for new product
  • Too low to display: you have to go to Amazon.com, add the product to shopping cart to see the price
  • Currently unavailable

What are eBay prices?

eBay prices are the sum of product price and shipping fee.