How pccase.live tracks prices

Where the prices come from

Every price is the store's own: read from its product page, from the data it publishes, or through a data service that reads that store's listings. Shelf stock at Micro Center stores is read about every 30 minutes, online stores every few hours. A product's page lists its latest price and stock changes with the time each was seen.

Nobody pays to be listed or to be listed higher: lists are ordered by price, stock or the order you choose.

How a listing is matched to a product

• By barcode or part number. A listing counts for a product only when its barcode (UPC) or the manufacturer's part number matches. A matching name is not enough: stores spell names differently, and sellers reuse them.
• Checked again every day. Each product's specifications are compared with what the stores selling it state. Where the stores agree against us, we correct ours; where they disagree with each other, a person looks at it. A listing whose title contradicts its product (another capacity, another model) is taken off that product.
• New, open box, refurbished and used are kept apart. A refurbished product is its own page, and an open-box, refurbished or used unit is never shown as the price of a new one: it is listed on the product's page with its label.

What "in stock" means

On the shelf at that store, or available to order online, as the store itself reports it at the last read. Stock moves faster than any tracker: confirm with the store before you drive there.

Stores and marketplace sellers

• Marketplace sellers are named. On Amazon, Newegg, Walmart and eBay, an offer from a third-party seller shows the seller's name next to the price.
• A price too good to be true isn't counted. A third-party seller's price under half of the cheapest legitimate price elsewhere is marked "price not confirmed" and is never the best price, an alert or a deal. It counts again once a later read finds it within reach of the other stores. A store's own price is never set aside this way.

Customer ratings

Where a store shows what its own customers gave a product, we show that store's average out of five and how many customers rated it, next to its price. The number is the store's. The reviews stay on its page, one click away.

• Across stores. A product rated at more than one store gets one figure: each store's average counts by how many rated it there. 4.6 from 1,204 ratings at one store and 4.2 from 96 at another make 4.6 from 1,300.
• Sorting by rating. "Top rated" does not put 5.0 from three ratings above 4.7 from four thousand. For the order only, every product starts with 50 ratings at the average of its kind, so a figure counts for more the more people stand behind it. A product needs 25 ratings to appear in a top rated list.
• One rating for several versions. Stores often show a single rating for every size or colour of a product. Where that is so, the product's page says so.
• What the total is not. A maker's reviews can appear at more than one store, so a total may count some people twice. Amazon's ratings are not shown: its terms keep them on Amazon. A rating a store's page has not shown for 45 days is dropped.

What "popular" means

The popular cases at the foot of each page, and the order every list opens in, are not our picks, and not simply the newest. A series qualifies if at least 2 retailers sell it new and in stock today, so one store clearing an old part does not make it popular. Three measures then decide its place, each a rank, added up:

• What sells now. Its best place in the order Newegg lists them in when sorted by its own best sellers, read once a day. Only what Newegg sells itself keeps a place.
• What the most buyers chose. How many customers rated it at the stores. This is what keeps a series that came out two years ago and still sells on the list.
• What the shops stock. How many physical stores have it on the shelf today.

Among the most popular, each maker takes a turn, so the list shows every maker's popular cases and not one maker's eight. How many turns a maker has follows how many buyers chose its products: every maker among the most popular has at least one place, and none has more than half. No store publishes how many it sold, and we show no such figure. Amazon's sales rank is not used: its terms keep it on Amazon.

What "cheapest" means in a sentence or a table

Where a page says which product is the cheapest, what a brand's cases start at, or compares a brand with any other, the price is for a new unit, in stock, sold by the store itself. Marketplace sellers' and refurbished offers stay on each product's page, where you can see who sells them.

MSRP

The maker's launch price in US dollars. It is a reference point, not a claim about what the product costs today.

Independence

Independent: not owned or endorsed by any manufacturer or retailer. How the site earns, and what that never changes, is on the About page.

Found something wrong?

Tell us which product and what is off. Reports about prices and specifications are checked against the store's page and corrected.