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Buying love

December 13, 2008

Tis the season for me to purchase the favor of my nephews by somehow telepathically knowing exactly what they want for Christmas. (Here's a hint, kids: I know your mom's phone number.)

In the process of buying a "Webkinz Lil'Kinz Chipmunk" (which is apparently a stuffed animal backed by a web-2.0 enabled social networking site), I can't ignore the fact that Amazon is, as usual, trying to goad me into spending a fortune.

I can think of two possible causes for this, and I don't know which is worse:

Amazon is misrepresenting the behavior of other consumers in an attempt to upsell me to a not-particularly-cost-effective bulk deal, or
They really are frequently bought together, and therefore, on average, we are buying our kids $75 bucks worth of toys a pop for Christmas.

Is the dollar that weak? Or am I just being cheap?

(The toy pictured is a "Webkinz Chipmunk", which is not actually the correct gift; I still need to find the "Lil'kinz" version of the toy, which is somehow different and not apparently available on Amazon. So my quest continues. God please don't make me go to a brick-and-mortar store.)

Posted by rus at 05:26 PM

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