I received Deals Direct‘s “deal of the day” email last night, and it featured an “iPod shuffle look alike” at cheap price — $79 free delivery for an 1Gb version ($75 with 5% off coupon code, instead of $149 if you buy a real shuffle from Apple. Almost half price.

What you get is a really-really-simple MP3 player. A directional navigation keypad. No LCD. Plays MP3 and WMA (so it will not be able to play AAC’s from iTune Music Store). It looks like a shuffle, plays like a shuffle, and in fact Deals Direct has to explicitly say on their website:

Note — The “1gb stylish MP3 Player” is not affiliated with, approved or sponsored by Apple Computer Inc or its related entities.

Sounds like a good bargain. Obviously won’t work with the new iPod Hi-Fi, but I guess those who are interested in $79 MP3 players won’t be too fuzzy if it cannot be plugged into $550 stereo. So last night I thought, “well, I’ll blog about it tomorrow“…

Only to find out that they sold all their stock in 12 hours.

Moral of the story:

1. Find something cheap that looks similar to a popular product (lots of copycats in Taiwan and China).
2. Sell lots of them at bargain basement price.
3. Profit!

Oh, it also reminded me not to procrastinate when something cheap came up on my radar screen.