?Sean Hannam is the online editor of www.ertweekly.com - the website of ERT Weekly - a dedicated magazine for electrical retailers Tesco sent shock waves through the electrical retailing sector recently when it sold a name-brand washing machine for less than £100. The special price was among several 'great deals on electricals' advertised in the national press over the Easter weekend. Other promotions included a Dyson DC08 vacuum cleaner at £99.48 and a Medion satellite navigation system at £59.97 - both at half their usual prices. The remaining two items listed were an Acer laptop computer at £379.97 and a HD-ready Samsung 37-inch digital LCD TV at £599.97. But it's not just Tesco that is slashing the prices on electrical products. In January of this year, Asda hit the headlines when it introduced the UK's cheapest DVD player - at £9! Its customers can now buy a DVD player for less than the cost of a chart title DVD, and Asda claims it sells one out of every four DVD players sold in the UK. All these bargain prices may be good news for the consumer, but they spell doom and gloom for independent dealers. How can they compete with the supermarkets when they are churning out products at such low prices? The electricals market is arguably the most attractive retail sector, but it's also the most cut-throat. Price erosion is so severe that it's only a short time before new, high-tech products reach the mass-market. Earlier this year, Asda slashed £18m from the prices of its electrical products - the first time it has singled out electrical products in a price-cutting campaign. High-Definition (HD) has been the buzzword of the past two years and retail statistics show that HD TV products are selling in significant quantities.The £2.6bn HDTV category now accounts for 45% of the total consumer electronics market and 81% of the total TV market. However, the prices of must-have gadgets such as High-Definition flat-screen TVs, HD-DVD and Blu-ray recorders are falling faster than ever. Over the Easter Bank Holiday, the Dixons Store Group (DSGi) sold a Samsung Blu-ray player for £350. When the product was introduced last year, it retailed for about £1,000. As prices come down, staff will have to be more clued-up on the latest consumer technology because more customers are going to be buying high-tech, big-brand electrical goods as part of their weekly shop.

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