... long term financing makes sense and no interest is good for the consumer,though as has been noted, the cost is built into the selling price. I was looking into a couple of big ticket items from GC and found that some were things that they would be direct shipping from the MFG thus not having to pay for inventory and space to keep it. It wouldn't surprise me to find this as the norm for the very high dollar item and/or anything that will need to be heavy freighted.
Mmm...not sure about that.
I'm a very frugal shopper, and so I will research most items across multiple merchants. Compare the prices, the shipping, the taxes..etc...and TBH, on the stuff I got from Sweetwater at 0%, it was usually was selling for the same price at other merchants that weren't offering any deals.
IMO...I think they get their profits by doing a lot of sales, on the markup from wholesale prices, and when you hook up with these 0% deals, it has to be on their cards (which is Synchrony for a few merchants)...so now you have this card with a limit, and it's always there in case you need it....and that's what they count on, that besides the 0% purchase, you will at some point make more purchases without that deal.
In my case...they don't win.
I never violate the no interest rule I set for myself many years ago, AFA credit card charges go.
On car purchase, I've taken 0.9% or 1.5% a coupe of times, but like I said, I also did 0% on a couple of other purchases when I was rotating cars more often.
Right now, my one vehicle (SUV) is paid off...and the car has 2 years to go on an interest free loan, which was originally 5 years. in the past I would have been getting ready to rotate the car, but I haven't been driving this one as much as in the past...so after 3 years I have less than 20k miles on it, and when it's paid off in 2 years, it will be like new, very low miles, and I'll have real good equity in it as a trade in...or I may just keep it longer.
Things have been pretty good for me the last 15-20 years, but heck I remember younger days when my income wasn't as great, and it was harder to cover expenses, and then that "something" you really wanted ended up going on a credit card with interest charges, and I just had to roll with it until I could get it paid off. About 20 years ago I cleared out all my CC balances, and from that day, I swore never to pay a penny in CC interest charges again, and I've managed to stick with that, plus, income is much better these days...so I can play around with the 0% charges and not really worry about missing a critical payment.
I know it's hard for some folks to dodge the CC balance/interest merry-go-round when life tosses things at you...but then you just have to tough it out and get off quick, otherwise you may never. The people who just shop mindlessly without considering their finances simply because they *want*...they deserve to be on that merry-go-round.