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Why you might want to buy tech right now
Tue, 24th Mar 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

IT manufacturing has already taken a massive hit and research and analyst firms are predicting a further decline in spending as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the globe.

The semiconductor, PC including tablets and laptops, smartphone and even AR/VR markets have all been reported as seeing ramifications by IDC in the last week.

This may be the exact reason it is important for you to spend now if you can.

Tech is only going to get more and more difficult to get your hands on over the coming months. Already Kotaku has reported that the Nintendo Switch has seen shortages, and Sony Playstation is expecting manufacturing costs to go through the roof.

Not to mention, demand is also beginning to rise as people are realising things may not be easy to get in the near-future.

If you have the need and the means, make your orders now.

Hopefully, the company will have stock right away, but even if it takes some time to reach you, you will be injecting some much needed revenue into the economy at a vital time, and getting in before the market shortages hit in force.

Of course, another big factor is the rise in remote working and remote learning.

We are lucky that we live in an era where this is even possible, but there are many workers and students out there who don't have good access to the technology that enables it.

Take stock right now and, if you have employees, check in to see if they and their children are going to be able to keep up in this new world.

If not, perhaps you could work out a system where they could loan a laptop, monitor, or keyboard and mouse in order to keep the economy, your business and their education going.

And ff you are able to go ahead and make a few purchases, do try to support local businesses.

Keeping the cashflow in the country is going to help the local economy, you are more likely to be able to have direct contact with the seller, and the chances are you will see any goods you purchase more quickly.

In particular, you're not likely to see anything soon if you are ordering from China or other heavily hit Asian countries.

Of course, we don't want to see the IT equivalent of panic buying that is happening in supermarkets. Take a reasonable approach and keep in mind that our economy and entire social fabric relies on access to technology.

For more detailed information about this, check out this article from Kotaku.