Description
This article is from the Macintosh for
sale FAQ, by Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@shock.njit.edu with
numerous contributions by others.
08 Authorized dealers (Where Should I buy a new Mac?)
Hard as it may be to believe Apple authorized dealers are
normally the most reliable, best stocked, and cheapest source of
Apple brand equipment. You are unlikely to do better by buying at
educational discount, at a superstore, or by mail-order (though
walking in with the price list from a local university or
superstore is often the quickest way to cut through a lot
of haggling).
The larger dealers should offer you a price several percentage
points less than offered by smaller dealers since Apple charges them
less for product. The key number is $5,000,000. A dealer that orders
five million dollars of merchandise from Apple in a year pays about
three percent less for its product than a dealer that only orders
$1,000,000 of Apple products in a year. (This is also a great
incentive for dealers that are on the borderline of one of the two
tiers to cut margins to move more volume.) Dealers that order less
than a million dollars a year normally order product through a master
reseller like MicroAge which tacks on its own markup. Apple sets
minimum advertised pricing and punishes dealers that advertise lower
prices so that smaller dealers can compete, at least for the business
of uninformed consumers (which isn't you since you're reading this
FAQ list.) This helps keep advertised prices pretty much in lockstep,
but you should expect that the larger dealers will offer prices
several percent less than what they advertise when you visit
their store.
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os, mac, apple, Macintosh, selling, buying, equipment, parts, hardware
