On Wednesday, September 18, 2002, at 09:55 PM, Paul Weaver wrote:
On the matter of what prices are charged to consumers, it is
immaterial what
margin there is for the reseller. The important questions are whether
or
not a retail price agreement is in place amongst the various sellers,
and
whether or not the wholesaler is dictating the retail prices?
Regards, Paul.
I think you might have missed the point Paul. The margin is a big
reason a reseller would go into business! They want to maximise the
amount of money they make!
One thing that I don't know has been mentioned yet, is that Apple do
sell Macs, on a retail level, themselves. Go to the Apple Store online
<http://www.apple.com.au/store> and you will see every Mac available at
prices set by Apple. Through financial calculations based on how much
each Mac costs to make, what the market is willing to pay, and how much
money they wish to make, the price is for each Mac is set. This is the
price Apple wishes to sell you a Mac. If you purchase direct from
Apple, this is the price you pay. No bartering at all!
For those resellers who buy from Apple, they all pay the same price.
Apple sets a "recommended" retail price for a Mac based on what they
sell the Macs themselves, just like every other manufacturer. For
example, Canon set a rrp of $1395 for the MV500i Digital Video Camera,
but shopping around will show that not every reseller sells that camera
at that price. But, if given the opportunity, every reseller of those
cameras would sell you the camera at full rrp!
You have to remember that rrp is just a reference point, a benchmark.
Imagine that there are 2 stores trying to win your purchase. One of
them quotes rrp, but one quotes $100 less. So you start to play one
off against the other. The store who quoted $100 less is already in a
bad position. He has $100 less to play with, so his ability to barter
is diminished. They both start dropping their prices a little, or start
throwing in other goodies to win you over. You might find that the
store initially quoted rrp may offer the best deal, as he had that
extra $100 bargaining power over the discounted store. Think about it.
That is nearly two boxes of blank DVD-Rs, 200 or more blank CDs, a new
release game, or $100 off anything else. So if a bit of lateral
thinking is used, both the store and the customer loses out if the
store quotes less than rrp *initially*.
Furthermore, I used to work at the Cannington store, which was owned by
the same company as Nedlands. There was no collusion on price at any
stage, otherwise you would have paid the same amount for every item in
each store. And we all know this was not the case!
I figure the point here is to look beyond just the price itself. A bit
of smart shopping will yield better results than shopping on price
alone.
Kindest regards
Rod.
