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Apple Found Guilty of Russian Price-Fixing (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: Russia's competition watchdog has found that Apple fixed the prices of certain iPhone models sold in the country. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (Fas) said that Apple's local subsidiary told 16 retailers to maintain the recommended prices of phones in the iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 families. Non-compliance with the pricing guidelines may have led to the termination of contracts, it found. At the time of the investigation, Apple denied that it controlled its products' pricing, telling Reuters that resellers "set their own prices for the Apple products they sell in Russia and around the world." The regulator said Apple had now ended its price-fixing practices but has not said whether the company faces a fine. The FAS claimed that Apple Rus monitored the retail prices for the iPhone 5c, 5s, 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus.
I wondered why my Russians were so expensive!
Why even have 3rd party dealers / distributions? Or is it that you to have full price control but don't want the risk of sitting on unsold items no the 3rd party dealers / distributions with min order numbers are the ones who take that risk.
Why even have 3rd party dealers / distributions?
Because it is not economically feasible to build an Apple Store in every town and village. Selling on-line doesn't work so well in countries where packages are routinely stolen.
So what? Gazprom is a state owned company. When it sells natural gas to European countries, does it forbid the resale at a different price? I don't think so.
Cmon, editors, you need to think about these stories before you blindly post them with stupid, uninformed headlines.
Apple dictating to its retailers what prices to offer for their own manufactured phones is not "price fixing". Price fixing in the traditional sense is when competitors in a market collude to artificially set the price of a good that they otherwise should be competing on, which deprives the free market of alternatives.
This is a case of Apple setting its own product's pricing. And something is being lost from the Russian story and what they mean by things like Recommended Retail Price / MSRP, but this is not "price fixing". Please use some judgment before using inflammatory / inflated headlines.
Apple Fined $670,000 In Taiwan For Price Fixing in 2013
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Yo Bill, it was good weather today. Do you do business with Russians?
Is that a branch of the Federal Oligarchy Enforcement Service?
A significant portion of consumer sales still go through walk-in-retail channels, and with the phones they have the added issue that many people buy the phone as part of a contract. Apple doesn't want to become a mobile network operator all around the world, so they are going to have to partner with local dealers. I imagine this is even more of an issue in Russia where you probably need some local connections to keep things moving along.
As for the retail pricing control thing, that is rather interesting. I used to sell an electronics product through retailers. Every single retailer always bugged me about needing a bigger margin, but if I ever gave one to them, they would immediately started discounting so they could undercut their competitors. This would cause all the other retailers to get really annoyed and demand that I stop the rogue retailer from discounting (even though they know I'm not legally allowed too). In the end everyone just got totally screwed over by their own competition on margin, which allowed me to gradually raise prices and pocket more of the sale price myself. Apart from that last bit (my product decimated the competition, so I didn't really have that much pricing pressure myself), that is sort of how the retail marketplace is meant to work.
I must admit though, there were times when I would 'suggest' that a retailer shouldn't get carried away with long term discounting to avoid the constant harassment of other retailers. In the end most retailers are just sales people with low to medium levels of business acumen, and many of them cannot see the bigger picture of the system they are in. A big part of your job as the manufacturer is to manage perceptions so they feel happy and enthusiastic, and some times this involves playing a few games and managing the different egos as best you can. I would have thought at the level Apple operates though, they would be much more meticulous about not getting caught out in such an obvious way.
You are irony impaired. The Russians have a "competition watchdog" yet they have one of the least competitive enterprise business environments. Gazprom is one example.
Ask Russian Post, to a lesser extent customs office and Russian DHL.
Are you daft? How do you think the phones get to the people who've bought them?
Actually, the exact opposite happened in 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06...
The Supreme Court STRUCK DOWN an antitrust rule AGAINST minimum retail prices.
Well when I order them they get delivered to my home or office. I haven't yet seen a way to reach into my monitor and pull the item from "on-line". Just curious how someone could steal my stuff on-line before it gets to me. DUH!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Why can't more places sell direct and not use not so independent dealers that are controlled by the manufacturer.
Russia wants apple open factory there with local workers.
Uh, they already had that during the Soviet era
I remember when Russia was guilty of price-fixing apples.
Good for them. The Russian people control their own energy sector, instead of giving it away to oligarchs, to profit from obscenely like in Yeltin's time.
No. This is the thing. You sell your product for $10 to someone who then resells it brand new for $8. Or you sell it to them at $6 and ask for them to resell it for $10.
The price fixing is in that you can't force someone else to resell or sell the product at a given price.
Not allowing retailers to sell for profits below or beyond what Apple dictates is not illegal either.
Yes it is, or at least should be in any civilized country.
There is no 'Russian people' here. In Yeltsin's time, it was privately owned, under Putin, while it's still nominally private, it's executives have to be on good terms w/ Putin to avoid being arm twisted or bullied.
Well when I order them they get delivered to my home or office. I haven't yet seen a way to reach into my monitor and pull the item from "on-line". Just curious how someone could steal my stuff on-line before it gets to me. DUH!
Why would somebody believe "Selling on-line" means ' reach into my monitor and pull the item from "on-line".'?
Unless they are a Russian troll?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
No, basically what Putin did was either they paid taxes, or they went to jail.
Can anybody else find a new (not used or refurbed) iPhone of the current or last generation for less than Apple's standard price?