Get the picture: LCD TVs may cost more

If you're looking for a deal on a flat-panel TV or home theater system, this may be the time to act.

Several independent electronic merchants say prices could creep higher in time for the year-end holidays.

These retailers blame a trifecta of higher production costs in China, which still accounts for a majority of the world's electronics production, ongoing weakness in the dollar and record-high fuel costs for elevating vendors' costs and eventually retailers' prices in the second-half of the year.