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IBM Leaving Retail PC Market

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-chips dept.

SabbathRM sent in this story from nyJournalNews.com about IBM's plan to stop retail distribution of their Aptiva PCs on January first. They'll still be available over the Internet, at least for the present, just not on store shelves.

1 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Beginning of the End for Retail Channel? by yoshi · · Score: 4

    I realize that the story was skeptical, but IBM doesn't make decisions lightly. They make mistakes, sure, but carefully thought-out mistakes, and historically, they have made a lot of very good decisions.

    Selling computers through the internet has a couple of advantages:
    1. lower overhead (at least in theory)
    2. presentation control
    The first is obvious, but the second is, in my opinion, more crucial. The computer market has grown in complexity, and retail stores have not kept up. Sure, their are some bright people out there working at Best Buy and Circuit City, but for the most part these people, in my experience, are sorely in need of information.

    Differentiation is vital to a company like IBM. They charge more for the "same" machine as some competitors, and therefore, they have to make the consumer aware of the IBM added value. With web sales, they can control and monitor the information made available to the consumer, and that is a real boon.

    I don't know that this will really bring about the end of the (indirect) retail channel, but it wouldn't surprise me to see others follow suit. Look how well Dell and Gateway do, despite their products' premiums - they have primarily direct (that is, more controlled)-channel sales.

    -Yoshi