My Cross Border Savings – Laptop battery!

by | Apr 5, 2010 | Blog, Deals | 1 comment

Well, after a great Easter long-weekend, I thought I would share some recent cross border savings I took advantage of.

For over 2 years now I’ve been using a laptop with a dead battery in it. The laptop is only 3 years old, but for some reason the battery died about a year after I bought it (Conveniently for the laptop maker, it died JUST after the warranty expired…).

I’m not talking about a 30 minute lifespan, I’m lucky if it lasts for 3 or 4 minutes! This means that I have to carry an adapter around with me everywhere I go, but what drives me really crazy is that a replacement battery costs about $140 Canadian.

I looked EVERYWHERE online in Canada for a cheaper battery, but couldn’t find one cheaper than $130. There was no way I was going to pay that so soon after spending so much on the laptop to begin with. However, last week someone told me to check out eBay.com. Within 5 minutes of searching I found the exact battery I needed for only $45, with free shipping to a US address! I couldn’t believe it so I placed the order immediately and because they didn’t offer Canadian shipping, I had it shipped to a border Kinek Point (check out our US Shipping Address section to learn how to ship to one of Kinek’s over 700 US addresses).

While I could have used this battery a few years ago, I’m just glad I can actually use my laptop the way it was supposed to be used.

Comments

1 Comment

  1. Mike
    Mike on April 6, 2010 at 6:31 am

    Well,

    I have been renovating my house and ordering stuff online from ebay. I feel your pain on the savings. For example… my house is an older one with forced hot water heaters. Each room in the house is controlled by a zone valve that opens or closes to send hot water out to the room when the thermostat says bring the heat!

    Well, my local supplier who I purchased my new furnace from quoted me $285 (Cnd) per new zone valve, not installed. I found the same one on ebay from a supplier in NY for $84 (US) with free shipping in the US. I belief in buying local but even if the dollar was 80 cents compared to the US dollar I would still “save a bundle”. So, I only needed one but ordered 3 just to have spares and had them shipped to a friends house. Next time I will use a border Kinek Point, alot closer to my home in Canada and not too far to drive to save over $500.

    Thanks for the info… and can you say dollar soon to be at par.!!!!!!