Apple Bans Online Sales In Japan

siddesu writes "Large retail stores in Japan were ordered a week ago to stop selling Apple products online (Google translation; Japanese original). The comments in the Japanese business newspapers suggest that Apple believes online shopping confers an aura of 'cheapness' on its products; but surely killing the Apple store's competition must have entered into the calculation. As of today, most of the largest retailers have notices on their Apple catalog pages asking you to visit the shop if you want to acquire a piece of magic. It seems that for the moment the campaign is aimed at the big fish, as smaller shops still seem to be selling Apple products."

Comments

Re:Yet Amazon sells them in the US

[AHuxley]

Its like region coding for dvds. Some regions get DTS, tins and other fun stuff.
Some parts of the world got a 16:9 movie and .. nothing.
Apple wants to milk different parts of the world in different ways.
From Japan to the Australian price bump on some products, if the herd pays, Apple will farm you.

How much were the online sellers discounting?

[Shag]

Apple has long discouraged domestic resellers from discounting its products, which is why you'll rarely see anyone selling them at more than a 5% discount within the US. (You will, though, see other deal-sweeteners, such as expanded RAM or a free printer thrown in.) Some early articles I read on today's news indicated that the online shops in Japan may have been marking things down too much for Apple's tastes - if that was the case, this wouldn't surprise me at all; it'd just be Apple applying the same sort of policy it applies domestically to overseas resellers.

Interestingly, there's a "Your Rights Online" story active on Slashdot right now about a Supreme Court case involving "the ability of resellers to offer legitimate, non-pirated versions of copyrighted goods, manufactured in foreign nations, to US consumers at prices that undercut those charged by the copyright holders."

Shoe on the other foot?

Re:How much were the online sellers discounting?

[TedRiot]

This is pretty usual in some fields with some highend brands. For example Polar (heart rate monitors) does not allow retailers to advertise discounts on their products, though they are allowed to sell with a discount. Same applies for many other brands that consider themselves 'not cheap'.

And if you don't sell by their rules, you are not allowed to sell them at all.

I myself don't (and I'm not implying that parent did either) consider this evil. If a manufacturer wants to limit their distribution channels, I think they are welcome to make their products hard for the consumer to acquire.

Re:How much were the online sellers discounting?

[mjwx]

Interestingly, there's a "Your Rights Online" story active on Slashdot right now about a Supreme Court case involving "the ability of resellers to offer legitimate, non-pirated versions of copyrighted goods, manufactured in foreign nations, to US consumers at prices that undercut those charged by the copyright holders."

This is called Parallel importing and is quite legal here in Australia. This has been a great boon to those of us who like games at half price and don't mind waiting two weeks for them to be delivered. Parallel importing is tax free up until A$1000, then the govt simply asks for it's cut.

There was a legal case where a store was selling legitimate branded clothing at a reduced price, the company sued the store but because the imports were above board (not counterfeit, taxes paid) the court ruled in the stores favour. Reference - Polo\Loren vs Ziliani Holdings Pty Ltd.

This is also the easiest way to fight price discrimination, which as I pointed out happens with video games, from Play-Asia.com I can get US, Euro or even Australian versions of games for A$40-45. From local Australian retailers the exact same products go for at least A$80.

Re:News of the day

[DJRumpy]

Rule #1 - Any positive comments about Apple will get you modded troll it seems. Slashdot has turned from rational thinking and actual intelligent discourse in regards to Apple to simply "they are anti-geek or anti-hacker and therefore evil".

It doesn't matter what the context or the content of the post is. Any 'fuck apple' will get an immediate 5 Insightful. Look to the top of this entire thread for a prime example.

Apple gives plenty to the community:

Clang, Blocks (in llvm), libdispatch (Grand Central Dispatch services), OpenCL, WebKit (including a whole new JavaScript VM), CUPS, Darwin, blocks, Bonjour, Calendar and Contacts Server, Darwin Streaming Server, launchd and XQuartz, MacRuby. Many of those not insignificant, and something which could have generated a lot of revenue in patents. I'm sure there are more, but those are just off the top of my head.

They are a far more responsible corporation than some, but they ARE a company, and given who they are competing with, they have to protect their profits. Apparently they are supposed to simply allow anyone to use their patents and copyrights, and defending those patents will immediately make you even more evil, even if it's justified (something that has yet to be determined by the courts, but has already been decided here). They are also not allowed to control their product sales, terms of service, or anything else that is accepted in thousands of other products around the world, all because they have 'insulted' the geek crowd.

I don't even know why I'm posting this. It will be modded into obscurity shortly anyway (see Rule #1).