Finding Holiday Discounts on iPods? 849
jeffy124 asks: "I was hoping to get an Apple iPod for Christmas. Alas, it's too expensive and out of the budget. So I'm forced into purchasing it for myself. Hoping to cash in on a holiday season bargain, I've been keeping my eye on the sales circulars that come in the newspaper. I've seen plenty of discounts for MP3 players of all kinds (Rio's, Dell's new HD-based player, etc), and the iPod has also shown up. Christmas does not yet seem very merry to me. They're always at the regular $299/399/499 price, never at a discount of any sort. You read that right, it's 'for sale' at the *regular* price. Stores guilty of this include Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and CompUSA. Why do stores do this? How often? And does anyone know why Apple has been singled out while their competition has gotten their products discounted? Anyone know who *is* granting discounts on iPods this holiday season?"
"The other day came in the mail a 10% off coupon for various items at Best Buy, including 'MP3 Players' as indicated on the front of slip. Hoping this was how I was gonna get that discount, I set aside time this weekend to drive to Delaware in order to skip out on my local state sales tax too. I turned the coupon over, and in the legal disclaimer was the phrase 'Excludes Apple iPod Players.' Needless to say, a Merry Christmas is still aways off."
Price Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
buy used (Score:2, Interesting)
Same old Story (Score:2, Interesting)
i got a used demo unit (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:buy used (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ebay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has refurb'd ones on sale... (Score:2, Interesting)
Scroll down and click on "Special Deals" on the left side of the page.
10GB -> $229.00 (no dock)
15GB -> $279.00
30GB -> $349.00
true of many items really (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blame Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, this is pretty common. Microsoft does this all the time with their retail software and the X-BOX.
What annoys me Mail-In-Rebates. It seems like all of the advertized prices for Best Buy, Comp-USA, Staples, yada yada, require rebates. Some require two or more. Rebates suck because you have pay up front, go to the trouble of mailing them in, and then you have to wait 4-6 weeks and hope. Plus you get nailed for the full price on the sales tax.
Re:Price Limits (Score:2, Interesting)
All said, I think price fixing is dishonest in all circumstances (unfortunately not illegal in these cases) but to varying degrees. In this case Apple is further in the wrong in my book.
Disclaimer: I am a mac user, this is not flamebait...
Re:Price Limits (Score:2, Interesting)
Have you considered that the margin on iPods might just be crap? If retailers discount, they make no profit - maybe even a LOSS.
Has no one said the more likely? (Score:2, Interesting)
Video Game Consoles and other hardware usually has a high wholesale price so the retail price is usually never discounted. Software (Games, CDs, DVDs, et cetera) usually have a very low wholesale price so some stores will give you wicked discounts on them in the range of 10%-30% and in some stores even %50.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Great deal! (Score:4, Interesting)
I sent my wife up to Best Buy when they were having their 10% off thing this weekend. I already saw on the coupon it said mp3 players 10% off (except Ipods). I told her to take it anyways, but then she lost it, ah well - so she did take the double-your-best-buy-reward-zone coupon.
She picked up the 40G ipod, a armband case or whatever, and the extended service plan.
At the register, she gave them her coupon, and the girl working the register said "Do you have your 10% off coupon as well?", and my wife said she didn't, so the girl went to a couple other registers to find one!!! She let it go through, too.
And, my wife doesn't know what happened after that, but she started talking, walked away, and found another 10% off coupon.
So, everything we bought only cost about $520 after tax. Ahhh.. And I was going to be content getting my 800,000 reward zone points.
Battery Replacement Now Cheaper (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shop at Best Buy (Score:2, Interesting)
Could it possibly be that your entire K-12 education was populated by Apples and those who extolled their virtues so convincingly that you now find yourself in the same role?
$179 for 10Gb iPod (refurb'd) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Has no one said the more likely? (Score:3, Interesting)
At my store (Score:1, Interesting)
One company can't "fix prices"... (Score:5, Interesting)
It appears, Dingleberry, that you have a disturbingly common misconception: that because only Apple makes Apple products, that makes them a monopoly. I will first give a relatively standard answer: does Sony have a monopoly because only they sell PlayStations? No. If Sony were the only company that sold gaming consoles, or held a supermajority of the market, and they actively fought to keep it that way, then they would be in a monopoly position. If Apple were the only company that sold MP3 players, or held a supermajority of the market, and actively fought to keep it that way, then they would have a monopoly and your position would be reasonable.
The other difference is that between monopoly pricing and price fixing. The former can only be done by a monopoly that holds a supermajority of the market in a particular commodity (a single company). The latter can only be done by what is commonly known as a cartel, a group of companies in the same industry that get together to decide what the price of the good or service they all sell should be. If they collectively hold enough of the market, they can keep prices as high as they want, because the competition cannot make enough of a dent in their market share to really compete.
You can be sure that even if the market share of the iPod dropped from its current level of (I believe) about 80% down to 40%, Apple would not lower the price by a significant amount. This is because Apple doesn't keep the price high to gouge us or because they're a monopoly, they do it because that's the kind of company they are: they make expensive, high-quality, high-profit-margin items that people buy because they're the best, not because they're the most affordable. In other words, they're not a monopoly, and nor are they trying to compete on the same footing as companies like Dell and HP, which always compete on price. They compete on quality, instead.
They're worth it.
Dan Aris
Gov't Discount (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Has no one said the more likely? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One company can't "fix prices"... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, then they'd be an illegal monopoly. They don't have to be fighting to keep it that way in order to be a monopoly - There are multiple legal ways to maintain a monopoly in American Capitalism, and others can probably give you better examples than I.
Sorry to be pedantic, it's just a common misperception and I felt like clearing it up.
Re:apple fixes the price (Score:2, Interesting)
What's wrong with that? If they want to charge $X for a price of a product and allow no discounts, that's their perrogative. If people don't like the price, they buy something else. I can see this as a good thing for Apple's own stores as well as their licensed dealers. They don't have to worry that much about the online stores cannibalizing their sales. An iPod, iMac, or PowerMac is about the same price, no matter where you buy it. The sellers can compete with non-Apple goodies and it's up the buyer if they want to pay shipping or sales tax. People absolutely hate buying an object only to find out that another store/website was selling the exact same thing for a significantly less amount.
iPod pricing outside USA (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:apple fixes the price (Score:2, Interesting)
And this is why older machines (Pentium-2, Pentium-3, etc) stop being sold - as the price gets lower, so does the profit margin. The computer industry works on pretty slim margins for a lot of things (I used to sell stuff on the side with a 10% markup, and my prices weren't much better than anyone else's). The only way they can make any real money is by selling a $2500 system (where they may make $250). A $250 system only makes them $25 - hardly worth getting out of bed, when you have to cover rent on your store, etc.
Re:apple fixes the price (Score:3, Interesting)
It's all abouy psychology...I will now relay an actual event I witnessed when working at a walmart shoe department many eons ago:
(lady standing in a long layaway line) "Young man, how much are these boots over here? (she points to some boots on sale).
(me) "They appear to be $18.00".
(lady) "Are they good boots?"
(me) "Good for the price."
(lady) "How much were they originally?"
(me) "ummm, let me look, ummmm $19.88"
(lady) "Well thats not a very good deal!"
(a second lady chimes in) "Nawww, those were $26.99 last week I know cuz I got my husband some."
(lady) "Oh! Well in that case I'll get a pair."
Conclusions are left as an excercise for the reader.
AFAIK, Apple Ipod Price is set by contract (Score:2, Interesting)
I work for a rather large (fortune 1000) computer reseller, that sells Apple products. I am part of a business to business outbound call organization.
I can tell you, even though I deal in corporate sales, a fair amount of my company contacts are interested in IPODs for themselves or families. I usually "wheel and deal" for them, for the holidays. I figure it's a benny I can offer for working with me.
I can tell you that there is barely any money to be made in reselling apple hardware. If you show me a piece of apple hardware, Imac, g5, ipod, etc, that my company makes more than 8 or 9 points of margin on, I'll be impressed.
Most apple hardware is around 6 points of gross margin. About the only thing you can make good money at in the apple world is selling support, be it your own support, or their "applecare" estended warranties.
I can tell you that my company, and my competition, to compete, absolutely will not offer a discount on the ipod. At less than 8 points of margin, what's the point of selling them? We will however, offer an IPOD bundled with say, deluxe headphones, or a "mobility pack", etc, for a little more to compete and offer a deal.
You see the same thing with PlayStation 2's. 179.95 or whatever is set by contract, but you can offer discounted items with it to get a competitive edge.
I know before I was in this business I always thought "A 600 dollar thing, they make a ton of money" or "a $2000 computer, wow, i can find it for 1500 somewhere else!" It's simply not true. Due to a competitive marketprice, you are lucky to make 8 points of margin on a PC Box. And Apple... I only assume they are taking most of the margin. To be honest, I'm not sure why my company sells it.
I realize it's probably too late, but... (Score:3, Interesting)