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Memo to Apple: Respect Your Resellers
An anonymous reader writes "As Apple opens more and more stores across the country (they are going to hit 88 by the end of 2004, according to top Apple retail honcho Ron Johnson), small independent dealers claim to be taking it in the shorts: five are suing Apple for all sorts of nastiness. Here's an interesting prescription for how Apple can make things right with its resellers and still open lots of shiny stores for the masses."
To the Apple store in the mall. There are probably several closer third-party Apple shops, but who knows who and where they are? The first thing that comes to mind is that glowing white, elegant store filled with all the latest Apple gear.
So, whether Apple is doing anything predatory or not, they could hardly help but displace the third-party stores.
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Because I have. Five of them. They're all holes in the wall, at least thirty minutes away and you can walk around for half an hour before they'll even acknowledge your presence. Then they charge 10% more than Apple does on their web site.
I was in one where I walked in, started browsing around and was completely ignored by the staff. A pretty woman walked in about five minutes later and the salesman immediately asked what he could do for her. I was going to buy an external HD but since they couldn't be bothered to help me I couldn't be bothered to buy one.
It's no wonder they don't like the competition, they suck. Apple's stores are a world better.
Are there any Mac people here that have had this experience? I've been thinking hard about getting a Powerbook as my next computer.
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I've seen a few Apple Dealers and frankly, they are out of their league in regard to competing with the Apple store(s).
I purchased my first Apple in an Apple store after having first visited two Apple Dealers. I was amazed that unlike Gateway Country stores or even the dealers I didn't have to place an order and wait for delivery I could actually walk out of the store with product in hand!
Apple's store fronts are stocked with just about every product. (minus very new products that haven't shipped yet) Their sales people are knowledgable and helpful. The store layout is excellent, you can actually find what you are looking for.
The Apple Dealers are going the way of the DoDo and they are lashing out in frustration. The only way they can survive is to offer additional services that Apple doesn't offer. i.e. custom development, onsite service, etc. They need to build niche markets and pursue them. This means they will need to do more then simply buy and resell Apple products.
The Apple Dealers have been dwindling for years and the whole reason Apple started opening the stores was to create market visibility in the nations shopping malls. The death of the x86 Clone Mom & Pop shops is now befalling the Apple Dealers.
The Dealers may have been responsible for 50% of the Apple sales in the past but that is going to move to the Apple store fronts. Apple is expanding in many ways and the dealer base is simply not large enough to handle to increase.
Some ideas for Apple Dealers:
- Work with Graphics, PrintShops, and Sign makers.
- Create a POS (point of sale system)
- Create inventory systems
- Physical Asset management systems
- Etc, Etc. bring the Mac into new ventures.
Have you ever BEEN to a non apple store? Its terrible. I'm in Richmond, Va, and we have 2 third party stores and they are terrible, they provide no service, and charge an arm and a leg.
Before we got our apple store my favorite reseeller was Compusa, how sad is that. Because the other 2 are so bad. If they want to compete maybe they should bring their Harddrive prices down a bit and memory prices, they price like apple. Its insane, $220 for 512megs of ram, and $180 for a 120 gig hard drive.
The other thing is the speed at which they get and stock their products. Not only do they get new products about a month after they are out, they don't even have anything in the back to BUY. They keep no stock on hand. You go to buy a powerbook and they tell you you'll get it in a week. WTF.
In my opinion the Apple Stores are just better, they may be doing some shady things, thats up to the courts to decide, but they are all around a better store for me, the customer. If the resellers want to compete, compete, not everything they have in their stores are controlled by an Apple price policy, get some deals inside, and don't charge me for a repair when my stuff is under warranty (another story for another time).
myRant.end();
As these smaller resellers are dying out, Apple needs to develop some smaller stores they can put in smaller markets.
I heard they were planning on developing small store fronts to put in college towns and campuses. This has yet to materialize. If Apple wants to reach more people they need to be where people are. These small stores need to be primarily showrooms where you can see the products and talk to a human. They should primarily just sell accessories and avoid stocking computers.
Apple started my PowerBook warranty from the date of manufacture. What else could they do? They had no way to know when the retailer sold it to me. They did change it to date of purchase after I faxed them the dated receipt.
What MacAdam is complaining about, I think, are (a) the unrealistic default start and (b) hassles with Apple process to adjust the start to "date of purchase." And on those points I agree. No retail venue short of a used car dealership places as much bureacracy between itself and its customers as does Apple.
Yeah I'm kind of echoing what a lot of people here are saying, I have a little different spin on it though.
There are a handful of legendary Apple Resellers that I have heard of. Never experienced, just heard of them. For this handful of stores, it is a most unfortunate situation.
All of the resellers I have dealt with were complete crap. Bozo sales people that couldn't field the simplest questions about specificaitons. Service people "I think it's fixed", "OH, you wanted that data?", and my favorite: "you need to call Apple". (I maintained a school network of at first 8 Mac SEs, eventually over 100 i/eMacs and PowerMacs over a 12 year period, so I know)
Aside from my professional experience, I decided to purchase a PM/933 from a local reseller, rather than drive across L.A. or pay shipping. When I ran across the screen spasms (turned out to be a driver problem), first they blamed my non-apple display. So I bought an Apple Display (this time from the Apple Store btw). Problem persisted. I pointed out the 900+ post on the Apple discussion forums to the service techs. Still nothing. "You need to call Apple", from their top dog tech whom I previously had respect for. Why should *I* have to call Apple? I just handed them a small fortune for the system, shouldn't *they* call Apple? Wanna guess how many more dollars I spent there?
I'm sure before the Apple Retail Project came into conception, Apple had heard thousands of stories just like mine. They knew opening retail stores would piss off a bunch of people, people that had helped them stay in business. They knew they would be sued. They knew little soapbox nazis would cry out about the injustice of it all. They also knew they had no choice but to surgically remove the cancer that had been eroding the value of their brand for the past decade. It was a simple cost:benefit analysis.
Really, do you think the iPod would have smashed the competition without The Apple Store? I remember taking a trip to New York a couple of months after the iPod was introduced. One of the retail shops my family owns is 3 blocks away from the SOHO Appple Store, so I had a chance to hang out and watch the street. Everywhere I looked, white headphones, white headphones, white headphones. Funny when I went uptown, not so many white headphones.
cat
I am an apple reseller. I work for a campus store where we sell Apple computers and a few other things here and there. I can't count the number of sales we have missed out on because we don't keep them in stock. But, being the size we are, we really can't afford to buy a bunch of computers and hope that people buy them. And with warrenty stuff, we can't even help people. If I can't fix it by myself really easily, I have to say "Here is the number, you will have to call them." And, I have to have a smile when I say it. It does't work. It would be fantastic if we could have a nice Apple front and have some things in stock, and a Genius Bar would be awesome. I know a lot of people who could do the job.
Got a problem? Call a monkey!
I just bought an iMac 2 Saturdays ago here in Austin. I had done all the research myself and I knew exactly what I wanted, but I waited until the Apple store opened up before buying? Why? I just felt better about buying there than from Fry's or CompUSA. Plus, I met the Mac Geniuses that would be taking care of me, if I ever come across something I can't fix myself.
All in all, it was a better customer experience, if you ask me.
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Apple Retail Stores. I was in a retail store not to long ago hanging around waiting for my wife to arrive. I saw no less than 5 different computer purchases walk out the door during the hour I was there. That was in one hour on a Friday afternoon. This may not be typical but I doubt it was their allotment for the month either.
Having said that, 10% profit is not bad at all. Compare this profit margin to other markets and see. The problems I have found with most resellers is like others have said. The stores suck and no one wants to go into them. There is a reseller's store literally less than 0.5 miles from my house but when I went to pick up my new 1.33 15", I drove 55 miles to Denver instead.
seSales, Point of Sale software for OS X.
did you just say knowledgeable and CompUSA in the same sentance? Thanks! I needed a laugh today :-D
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I don't think anyone has an emotional attachment to CompUSA. These are Apple customers. They would continue to buy Apple products, but from either the Apple online store, Apple 800 number, or an Apple retail store. Personally, I did my research online, went to an apple retail store to look at their products, and bought my Powerbook either online or over the phone from Apple. Can't remember which.
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By alienating folks like Verga and Armes, who have been the backbone of Apple's distribution network for the past 30 years
I read that, blinked, checked my calendar, and sho' nuff, it hasn't been 30 years. It's hard to take gratuitous embellishment seriously.
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I used to work at the largest apple dealer in the US, back in the 1980s. We took sales seriously, but this was before the computer market got commoditized, we could afford to have professional computer experts as sales reps. I don't know if that's possible today.
But when I deal with independent computer stores today, I am appalled. I was just helping a friend via email on buying a new iBook, he had an old iBook and wanted an upgrade. He went to a local independent dealer, they quoted him the same prices on the iBook as the Apple Store, but gouged him for upgrades. Like $250 for a 256Mb RAM stick plus $110 to install. They're insane, even an Apple Store RAM upgrade in a Build To Order machine doesn't cost that much, and BTO prices are a bit on the high side.
When I worked in computer sales, we used to call accessory sales "point builders" because you could sell a CPU cheap but build up the profit percentage (points) with accessories. But this independent dealer was way out of line.
In today's market, dealers are expected to make profits with service beyond the sale, but that's not going to happen with customers who buy overpriced accessories. They're eventually going to learn the true value of what they bought, realize they got a raw deal, and they're not going to be inclined to go back. Don't people know the most basic sales lessons? Your best customers are your previous customers. Keep them happy and they come back and bring their friends.
Since there are so many posts about how horrible 3rd party Apple dealers are, I just thought I'd mention that I had a really good experience with Tekserve, an Apple shop in New York City. I bought their last lcloseout TiBook last January, and they were very savy and easy to deal with.
To put another spin on MacAdam: they've been a smug, unhelpful shop with unconscionably high costs since I've known them (sometime in the mid-to-late-1980s). I've been a Macintosh owner since 1984, but was in Boston for the early 1980s.
:-) I haven't come across any of them.
MacAdam's niche was in a pre-Internet time, when comparison shopping was difficult. Plus the incredible hourly fees they charged businesses for set-up and basic administration. And the utter contempt and lack of attention to anyone not looking to purchase a complete system then and there. Plus shoddy sales and technical help, and miserable phone-side manners. Grrrr.
Now that we have the Internet, and we can find a better price-point, and businesses can find competent help at a better price, MacAdam has spent what's left of its karmic capital whining and suing Apple.
I'd have to say almost the same about the CompUSA on Market Street, a few blocks away from the new Apple Store. Great with a captive audience, obviously clueless and expensive when compared with other resources.
We have other ARs in San Francisco, some of whom STILL overcharge the elderly and uninformed in their neighborhoods. It rankles.
They may have been some extraordinary ARs, but in my twenty years of Macintosh ownership (and I've owned a few
If MacAdam, or CompuTown or CompUSA, had been there for those of us trying to keep our Macs at home and our Mac networks of the office running, rather than focussing only on gouging us for every little thing along the way, we might be there for you.
I can't count the times I've been infuriated by how Apple Resellers have treated me or others. When MacAdam closes its doors it'll be of little detriment to anyone but the owners and employees.
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there. -- Richard Feynman
A non-anonymous memo to all Apple Retailers.
Get off your fucking asses and invest in advertising campaigns to help sell your business. Apple wants to be more than a niche player who mostly caters to an ecclectic audience.
As Apple enters the Enterprise Markets what better way to demonstrate, regionally, the power of such Enterprise Services, than to be able to augment existing Apple Sales Points and bring in new potential businesses.
Waiting and coordinating with hundreds of independent resellers to do this is a complete waste of time.
Personally, I'd be leveraging the fact that Apple has a local presence near my business, advertise that you are an Apple Certified Reseller and coordinate with Apple to help push inventories.
Want to echo this.
Tekserve has been an amazing Apple resource in NYC for over 15 years. I bought my Powerbook from them. Their tech department is legendary. I would trust their word over Apple (especially about things like Logic Board problems, etc.)
For the record, I'm an apple tech. Desktop and portable. I've been doing this job for years, and I've ALWAYS worked for apple specialists. And, I'm somewhat on the fence regarding all of this.
Having worked for specialists, I've learned more about the mac, and this niche market than I ever thought I would. Back before the Apple Retail Stores, there were the catalogers, and the independent dealers. Within the dealers, there were resellers, and specialists. Resellers were places like CompUSA, etc who sold macs, along with everything else on the planet. Then, there were the specialists. The SP's were all mac. It was their bread and butter, their primary focus. They took care of it all. And today, despite the retail stores, we still do.
As an Apple Specialist, we're required to perform in and out of warranty service, staff certified technicians and a technical coordinator, perform in and out of warranty service, and we participate in Apple's Direct Dispatch program. All of the people I work with have been doing this as long as I have and longer. My owner can quote old beige system specs from memory, and can fix the antiquated dinosaurs that show up from time to time, with no problems. Me and my other techs can play "Name That Screw" which consists of picking up a screw from a machine, and being able to name not only every machine it goes into, but how many of that screw there are. (yes, we're huge nerds) My guys can go out on apple dispatches and repair machines onsite, and even correct the Apple support people when they send the wrong parts. My sales guys know what works, what doesnt, and how it all goes together. Similarly, we run our stores on nothing but mac's. Our point of sale stuff is mac based, along with our databases, and the like.
The problem however is cashflow, and it isnt all related to the Apple retail stores. Its a hard time to be a small dealer in the computer industry in general. Profit margins are very, and I mean very low. hypothetically figure that we buy an epson printer from ingram micro or tech data (the wholesale channels for retailers) and we spend $70. then, we have it shipped to our store. thats another $15. we're at $80. Epson is selling them for $79, and CompUSA bought a pallete of 1000 of them and is selling them with a $30 mail in rebate. Epson makes pure profit, Compusa gets a bulk discount, and we break even. Dont think there's much margin in machine sales either. There isnt. Apple is selling volume. Thats where their money is. The specialist culture grew up around selling the machines they love, fixing them, and offering the high end support that goes with them. All our money is made in services and third party items we make some margin off of. So, no matter what computer hardware your selling in a small shop, it's not easy.
As far as the Apple retail stores go, I find them very pretty, and they have a lot of stuff. And I commend that. It brings brand awareness to the platform. However...They tend to have a very high turn over of employees from what I can see thanks to the tysons corner and clarendon stores. Their sales people have a functional sales knowledge, but if you get over their heads, they automatically send you to the geniuses. The geniuses get two weeks training before they're put to work. Wow, thats a lot of training. I've spent ten years developing my skills. Unfortunately, I've also encountered times when the geniuses were backed up 6 deep with people waiting to be helped. I've also encountered instances where Apple told customers that they couldnt and wouldnt fix their machines, and that they should buy a new one. Yet, when they brought it to me, It took me about an hour, with a part I had in stock, to repair their our of warranty G4 Tower. (digital Audio machine)
I see things from both sides as I'm a consumer and I'm an employee of a Specialist. I love the Mac. Its the only computer I own. Thanks to the mac, I have a career, and a job I love. I could go corporate, and I could go apple. But corporate means wearing a tie, and Apple offer
I've worked for an Apple Specialist before, interviewed at another, and shopped at over half a dozen, so I've seen things from their perspective... yeah, there are occasionally little hassles with Apple.. but the local Apple rep responsible for our area worked his butt off to be a good liaison and make sure things went well.
I hate to repeat what everyone else on here has said, so I will just agree that most of the high rated posts in this thread are absolutely correct -- there are some excellent resellers, and some really terrible ones.. and they all seem to gravitate towards one end of the spectrum or the other. Slightly higher prices are understandable -- the smaller shops have much tighter margins and can't buy in the same volumes.. but the smart store operators can compete based on service, niche areas, store environment, all sorts of factors.. the used car sales guys just end up having a hard time and then scream bloody murder and blame everyone but themselves. On the subject of MacAdam, any time they get mentioned online, this page should be used as an excellent example of their behavior and Tom Santos' treatment of customers:
http://www.omino.com/~dom/readme/macadam.html
(be sure to check out his reply too!)
Maybe items like that, or their "unsatisfactory record" with the Better Business Bureau, or their poking around through confidential Apple databases might have something to do with that license revocation? IMNSHO, it's about time. Businesses like that give Apple Resellers & Apple Specialists a bad name, and then whine and pule about it when karma catches up with them.
Tangent: Just found an interesting op/ed piece that's definitely worth a skim:
http://adzoox.com/applestore.html
Anyway, just my 2.17 yen. There are some resellers who have healthy working relationships with Apple and do just fine. There are definitely some ways Apple could improve relations with them, but I think there are a large number of people at Apple that deserve much more credit than they are getting... along with many hard working people at Apple Specialists and Resellers who put in honest work, know their stuff, and take excellent care of customers, who deserve lots of business and respect. Then, there are some other characters who just need to STFU and go far, far away where they won't make anyone else's life any harder.
The Mac platform is in a very strong position right now. It's taken several years but finally the Mac is a strong platform with lots of third party support and momentum in the computer market. Seven years ago people weren't even sure Apple would be around to honor three year AppleCare warranties; today people are building supercompuers with Apple logos. The Mac is making a comeback in niche markets it largely lost to Windows-based workstations in the late 90s. It's also entering the Enterprise market and making a big impression in the big iron Unix world.
What VARs and Apple Specialists need to do is turn themselves into support services for these markets. They can continue to sell Apple's hardware but they need to start focussing on the words in their titles. Selling a school some eMacs is one thing. Selling them some eMacs and setting them up a central directory, file, and mail server with a hardware support contract is something else entirely. These sorts of services they can bill by the hour and guarantee with contracts.
Many companies only stick with Windows PCs because they don't think there's anything else in the world that can possibly work. Part of the job of the Apple retail stores is to provide a place where people can come see their products in action. VARs and SPs should go a step beyond that and really show businesses that they could save money or make more money by switching away from Windows.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I'm in the same boat here... I have two local reseller mac stores that are WAY too overpriced, and inside they both only have a front-area with a single desk that no one sits at, and a larger room in the back with a bunch of macs that I used about 5-6 years ago. They're a complete mess, have no prices anywhere for anything, no catalog, no displays, just ask some weird-looking guy, or his wife (or... whatever she is) whom you can ask how much something is, then they make a few calls to "someone" and tell you how much it is... which is always at least 4 times more than I can get it elsewhere. When I can get something cheaper at a CompUSA than a mac reseller... that is sad...
I think Apple and Jobs realized that macs were never really selling that well because their only business was repeat business. It was a niche/cult kinda thing, always was. With the move to these VERY awesome storefronts, they are showing off their cool, neat, innovative technologies to the public, attracting all kinds of new customers... and as you can tell, it's working! I praise Apple for their awesome innovations in design and technology, and hope to see some of these third party resellers step it up. I've seen a few good ones up in Silicon Valley, good mac area up there!
Ahhh well... maybe my opinions are biased, but come on now... just look at the Airport Express! There are NO devices on the market like it, so small, so cute, so feature-rich, so... awesome. I'm buying 3 of 'em myself! And for once... I think Apple priced it pretty damn well. Anyway... Viva la Apple! =P
I have been in only 2 third party dealers for Macs (4 in general) and honestly, I WONT step foot into them again... I have plenty of good third party places that work off a website and sell reconditioned macs, there is CompUSA, there are 3 Apple stores near me. PLUS I get a education discount that only my school can give me........ WHY WOULD I WANT TO GO SOMEPLACE ELSE?
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