Just wondering, since we have such a broad range of people here:
Does anyone know what the retail markup of mac products is? I notice that every time there's a sale at hardly normal or anything they don't discount the Mac stuff. I seem to recall i heard once it's because Apple don't give a very good wholesale price and therefore there's not much profit in the products.

Is that the case?

Apple don't give a very good wholesale price on ipods.

10% retail, 8% education

With margins like those don't bother trying to haggle on a Mac. By comparison third party accesories can have a markup of 10-50%. Software often has a similar markup.

I'm going to a cost + 5% sale soon and they allegedly have iPods.

But yeah from memory the profit margin for resellers is pretty low.

so you can get a mac, and haggle for a discount on osx :P

kinda what i thought. It makes me laugh, how can they get away with it!

Everyone else has to sell to retail establishments offering a 30, 40 50% margin for them and Apple can say "1-$ or jam it!". And places have to stock the stuff or get left behind. Makes me mad.

Actually I think you'll find under Australian law it is illegal for a wholesaler to tell a business what profit margin they are allowed to make. They can "recommend" a price, but cannot tell them. It's up to the retailer to set a price.

But if your a retailer and your competition, including your wholesaler, is selling it at one price your going to match it. Such is competition.

Well there's no way i'd say it's competition. Apple sells at a retail price on their website and so there's no way you can sell at more than that (plus they always offer free shipping so it's the same as buying in store). Apple sells it to you at 10% discount to the "retail" they sell for on their site. Everywhere sells at the same. If you want to move lots of stock all you'd do is sell it at 5% under "retail" but then after freight to your shop you'd make, what, $5-10 on a $200+ item.

It's semantics but i'd say it's pretty much apple controlling the retail price. Especially when they run these peusdo stores inside Myer and Harvey norman etc so you think maybe the bigger buying power will result in you being able to talk a deal. Nope. Try getting a price on a non-stocked item, like a Macbook with some extra ram and you'll see the guy boot up the apple website and quote you a price. Sheesh.

anything from apple has a piddlie amount of mark up... Even software is a joke (but not as bad as hardware) - how anyone sells macs and makes a profit is beyond me, especially when you try and sell other brands and Apple have a go at you about it...

Like I said such is competition. Apple isn't the first company to do it and it wont be the last (you should try dealing with Telstra they sell it to customers cheaper than they do retailers).

Welcome to Capitalism.

this is why we resellers ask you to support us and not haggle for the last few dollars as eventually there will be none of us left or you will have to deal with resellers that hire people for little pay and you will have people that know little about the product (we actually make less than the 10% stated above, 10% will be a max if targets are hit and if you are an applecentre).

ipod margins are horrid.

Apple have a simple rule: you sell at Apple's RRP, or you don't get to sell Apple. Simple.

Stupid, but very simple.


Brains

The one good thing... you know how much an Apple computer costs...

I worked for a reseller once, i was only there three weeks. We were paid a crappy base salary, and expected to make the rest up via commision (which we were only granted once we'd made a certain profit target). I asked one of guys who'd been there three years how often he made commision. When he said 'I've never made commision' I started typing up my resignation...

Low margins are ok as long as you make up for it in increased volume. However, availability is consistently a problem so it is very difficult for resellers to make a profit.

J.