Those wild days of Google Checkout Xmas 2006

Do you remember ValueAmerica.com? Value America (VA) was an early online reseller who exploded onto the scene in 1997. VA carried a ton of consumer goods, most interesting to us geeks of the day were the electronics. Computers, printers, hard drives etc etc.
VA was early to the online reseller game, Amazon had not started up yet, and VA was attempting to draw wary buyers into e-commerce. To entice buyers VA came out with “Value America Dollars”, a reward for shopping at VA. VA dollars were exchangeable dollar for dollar with US dollars up to 50% of a purchase price. VA dollars were awarded for purchases, awarded as gifts during holidays, awarded for opening a new account, given out freely to increase purchases.
VA was a bad marketing model, they were selling goods below cost to increase sells. The company went under after a couple of years but wow, what years those were. We techs who were taking advantage of VA dollars had a blast.
My reason for telling this story is that a similiar feeling is occuring at Buy.com with the Google Checkout discount. When you buy at Buy.com and use Google Checkout (GCO) you get a discount, $20 off of $50 and $10 off of $40.
I’ve used this checkout discount about 6 times in the last couple of weeks. I’ve purchased a Fatal1ty gaming mouse, two Creative web cams, an HDTV hookup cable kit, and a Netgear 802.11g wireless kit. All of these products had rebates in addition to the GCO so my final cost on them was free or darn cheap.
I’m not sure how long GCO can and will last but I’m daily looking for new deals to buy. Here are links to the items I’ve purchased, have fun and order some:

Creative Web Cam for about $8 after GCO and rebate
http://www.buy.com/prod/Creative_Live_Cam_Video_IM_Pro_Webcam_USB/q/loc/111/203251816.html?adid=17662

Creative Fatal1ty Mouse
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202220629&loc=101&sp=1&adid=17662

HDTV connection kit
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202919772&loc=101&sp=1&adid=17662

Some of these items are sold out but you can use GCO for anything at Buy.com.

Be sure to select the free shipping option to save a few more bucks.