I'm surprised by the outrage in this post. This is a very common - indeed, necessary - practice in retail.
A friend of mine manages a high-end retail store in the area. He tells me that there are a number of people who match this buying profile. The products either show up on Craigslist, eBay, or are moved out of state to be sold elsewhere, often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons. Like it or not, in pretty much any retail environment, this practice is unacceptable.
He also tells me that these small groups of people will often approach customers in the parking lot as they exit their vehicle, offering them cash to enter the store, buy the goods with a few crisp hundred-dollar bills, and to keep the change. This gray market is very real.
Beyond that, the guy admits he knew of the policy and was willingly violating it. There's really not much room for outrage here.
Why would a high-end retail store care? They sell some product. They might be unwilling or unable to enter some market - and this guy does it for them. The retail store still receives the money and people who get the product are aware of the fact that they paid more than they would at the shop.
I still don't get why this practice is unacceptable. The shop doesn't seem to lose anything here.
Think about it in terms of concert/sporting event ticket sales. Everyone hates scalpers. They aren't real fans, they're not going to go see the act/game. They know when all the ticket sales are going to be, since their entire life revolves around getting tickets, and they know all the pre-sales and other ways of snapping up tickets. They buy tickets in huge blocks when possible, use intermediaries and partners to buy more tickets to get around any limits.
When you, the fan, get around to buying tickets for the event you find that they're all sold out already (except for the nosebleeds). But you can get tickets on Craigslist for 3x the face value of the ticket from some guy who bought several large blocks for the sole purpose of re-selling them with a huge markup.
Maybe the venue shouldn't care if re-sellers are buying up all the tickets, but it sure makes for a shitty experience for their actual market (i.e. the people showing up for the event). It also limits the venue's ability to control supply and demand because they no longer have any direct say over the market price for their good/service.
So both fans and the venues seem to be worse off, while the middle man makes a big profit by artificially restricting supply.
The guy in the article exhibits the same type of buying behavior that a scalper would: buying more iPads than a normal individual would require and then reselling them at a markup. Apple doesn't have any way to tell that he's trying to extend their market abroad to people that can't purchase an iPad locally. But I'm pretty sure they have the same view toward a middleman that concert venues would. And the local customers trying to get an iPad when supplies are scarce are also going to be frustrated that one individual is making (effectively) block purchases.
One of the cardinal rules of good business is to cut out the middleman. That seems to be what's going on here.
Actually, I think the scalpers are right on some level. If they can sell the tickets at x3 price, then the real price of that ticket is x3 the original price. It only means that the vendor could do the same and get them all sold out anyways. If they really want to stop this process, it's enough to issue only tickets assigned to a name and check IDs at the gate - this way you cannot buy the ticket before you know who is it for - which means if person X can buy a ticket for me, I'm able to buy it for myself from the source.
But limiting scalpers is basically the same as EULAs and DRM - they're regulating what you can do with the thing you just bought. They're making life harder for normal users, while those who gain money by ignoring the system keep earning money.
But the only reason there is a demand at 3x the price is because the tickets are believed to be scarce because the scalpers bought all the tickets to sell at 3x the price because when the tickets are sold out at the venue it gives the illusion of scarcity.
They would not be able to do that, if there was no audience willing to buy it at 3x price.
Just think about it: scalper buys all the tickets and tries to sell it for triple price. Nobody buys it. Concert starts, it is empty and the scalper end up with expired tickets in his hands.
Does that happen? No, because people are willing to pay triple price.
Alternatively, the scalper sells half the tickets and makes a 50% profit overall. The concert sits half-empty and thousands of fans miss out unnecessarily.
At some price 'X' you won't find any more people wanting to buy the tickets - and the race stops there. Even if they're scarce, people won't be interested in tickets costing more than 'X' anymore, or you'll be able to do only X+5% so it's not worth the time.
But if you sell the tickets assigned to a name in the first place, there is no issue anymore. As long as venue sells "blank" tickets, they basically say they don't care if anyone is reselling them at much higher prices.
If there was an auction for the tickets the price would be driven up too. Shows do sell out in minutes and not just because of scalpers.
Imagine an auction that increased ticket prices until just before the show began. Now stop imagining it and recognize that it's exactly the same as sold out shows plus scalpers.
Yes, the concert-organizers should really just have an auction for the tickets in the first place. This way no-one can complain about high prices, since the fans bid them up to that level in the first place.
For extra ethical browny points, the sellers could donate (a fraction of) everything taken in above a certain `fair-price' point to charity.
Because they feel that shopping experience is part of their brand and people buying their "high-end" products in large quantities just to sell them elsewhere would hurt the brand on long term. Don't forget that Apple is very careful about its brand and image.
I'm not saying I agree with this practice, that's just the reason this is disallowed.
No it's not. It's more like a softer version of anti-slander than it is like they own your opinion. Are they going to send you a threatening letter if you don't like them?
You don't just buy an Apple iProduct - you embrace the Apple lifestyle.
That's why iPads come with adoption certificates, simply handing over money for one would devalue the whole experience of transferring the love from Jobs to you.
I'm on my third mac (I just can't find a comparable product to a MacBook Pro), but the whole apple lifestyle stuff is a big turn off for me.
If I could get a comparable laptop (obviously by my own preferences) then I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, just so I didn't have to feel like I was part of some Apple fanboy club.
I'm pretty sure that the majority of Apple customers feel that way or at least aren't interested in any kind of "Apple lifestyle". The proportion of Apple customers who are true fanboys is probably no higher than the fraction of Dell customers who are gamers with too much money and completely unrealistic opinions about the relative merits of AMD vs Intel and Nvidia vs ATI. The stupid rich Apple fanboys get more disdain than the stupid rich gamers because the Apple fanboys are more ostentatious and the gamers [ab]use technical terminology that makes them sound less subjective.
I gave up on my PowerBook 12" last year. It had pretty good software, but the hardware was really disappointing. I've bought a Lenovo Thinkpad, put Ubuntu on it and I'm very very happy.
I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue.
I still have the view though that if someone has the money they should be able to buy it and a lifetime ban is not really ideal.
> I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue.
If a retailer is unable or unwilling to enter a market, why should they be able to artificially ban anyone in that market from obtaining their product?
Take this outside of the context of Apple here. If Universal decides to release a DVD in the US, but wait 2 years to release that same DVD in the UK, should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace.
If anything, Apple is losing that revenue because they are 'unable and/or unwilling to enter that market,' not because someone isn't in the store shopping for their iPad. The argument that Apple is losing money over this is like the argument that the media industries make when they claim that every download is a lost sale.
>should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace
Indeed, they resort to technical means to effectively "ban" people (region codes). IMO the reverse situation should arise that the companies are prevented from imposing artificial segmentation by any means if they wish to retain copyright protection.
That's exactly why I used that example. Plenty of people think that DVD region coding is unfair and wrong, so I don't understand how this is any different.
Saying that this guy somehow 'wronged' Apple is like saying that someone who buys DVDs outside of their region code (and uses a region-free dvd player) is somehow 'wronging' the movie studios.
Lost revenue from not selling accessories and warranties to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought the original product in the first place?
This only makes sense if the base product is a loss-leader, and all of the margins come from the upsells. Best Buy may work this way, but I'm pretty sure Apple makes a profit selling even the barest iPad configuration.
Why they care: I was recently shopping for a camera. The one I wanted was supposed to retail for about $900. But it's new and popular, so it's selling for $1100 (or out of stock). I've decided that's too much, so I'm considering other options.
If the only message I got was out of stock, I'd probably wait. But upon learning that the price is actually $1100, that triggered a different psychological response, and now I'm looking for something cheaper. Something from a different manufacturer.
So sure, in the short term, they are selling all they can. But in the future, when they have more capacity, they just lost a sale.
Are you serious? They don't need your permission to do this—it's their product, they can implement whatever sales policies they like. They don't have any responsibility to defend the practice, it's their prerogative. But even if it wasn't, they simply don't want middle men marking up their products and taking a cut, while at the same time depleting their in-store stock. I don't blame them.
they can implement whatever sales policies they like
A small nit here but it's important to point out that this is Not Quite True. Over the past hundred years we've worked out some rules about what sales policies companies are allowed to have. For example, you can't deny sales based on race, you can't deny sales (wholesale) because a store sells a competitive product also, and so on. It might be that in the global market place these rules need to be revised.
Apple doesn't want middle men marking up their product? If that is so then how come I can buy an Apple product from Best Buy for the same price as from the apple.com? Is Best Buy selling these items for the same price they paid for them?
I believe Best Buy is what one would call a middle man.
> Is Best Buy selling these items for the same price they paid for them?
As far as I know, yes, they are. They make money on Apple products purely off of in-store warrantees and accessories. If you consider this, their store product layout starts to make a lot more sense: they have a huge Apple logo, tons of accessories prominently displayed, and then the actual products hidden on a bottom shelf.
Again—seriously? You can't compare one of the country’s largest electronics retail chains with a guy buying up iPads by the dozens and selling them on a gamer forum. Selling through Best Buy is clearly a strategic partnership that’s been negotiated as a component of their larger retail strategy. The guy buying iPads is not. Sure Best Buy's a middle man, but the point is that Apple can do whatever they want. There is no discussion about whether they should be allowed to do it or not. The fact that they bring on Best Buy as a middle man doesn't mean they somehow have to let this guy skim some cream off the top too. They haven't released the iPad overseas yet and what he’s doing is in direct contradiction to their launch plans.
Yeah, because he was going through the trouble of relating a complete, nicely told, story. What's up with this Twitter attitude? "Bought iPads for others overseas; now banned from buying iPads as per Apple's policy" is the kind of story you like to read?
No, but that's because the story fundamentally isn't interesting. It's the epitome of dog-bites-man, and we're only hearing about it because Apple anti-fanboys are hyping it.
I was also being somewhat facetious. The article opens with this:
I had planned on reviewing the iPad in my next post...
Another iPad review from a random blogger? Really? This isn't a Twitter attitude, it's an attitude of "nobody really gives two cents about your opinion". And yet, here I am typing this. The internet is hard.
It seems the outrage is mostly about the seemingly excessive punishment. After all, he wasn't sneaky. It's up to Apple to enforce the policy for normally purchasing customers. His behavior was no different than someone who was ignorant of the policy. [edit, ok, a little, but presumably the ignorant could innocently visit different stores, too]
And then on top of that, they refuse to give further information that they obviously have. Lifetime limit? The policy says there is a limit on the number that customers can purchase, the number 2 clearly seems to mean "per customer" or "for now". Clearly the lifetime limit is not two. So what is it? Or is it just weasel words?
For the last month, droves of apple fanboys have been defending every ridiculous move by apple no matter how misguided it may be. What kind of doublethink are you people practicing? Developers arguing that we shouldn't be able to write software for an iPhone unless it was "originally coded" in objective-c? I'm waiting for people to start bashing net neutrality or spreading wholesale FUD about open source because it might somehow pose a threat to the Apple Experience.
I'm typing this on a macbook pro, and I have an iPhone. For the last few years, I've enjoyed using apple products. I found that osx was a nice *nix development platform. Sadly, their recent decisions have been so disappointing to me that I've decided to stop supporting their platform. I've already ordered an android phone. My next laptop, like my current desktop, will be running linux.
It's very bizarre to watch so many people who claim to support open software systems defending Job's every move. It seems like some strange form of Stockholm syndrome. As for the rest of you, I encourage you to join me in voicing your disappointment with your wallets.
It's common, but necessary? It's an attempt to avoid the effects of an actual free market by attempting to prevent secondary markets from emerging. An alternative would be to compete on a normal market basis, selling products to willing buyers for mutually agreed upon prices, without attempting to further restrict what they do with them after purchase.
The pricing of the product and whether or not the product is "locked down" are two totally separate issues. Even if retailers and manufacturers raised prices during supply pinches and the initial rush, that wouldn't mean the product would be any more or less locked down.
As long as sales are made, any price is "mutually agreed upon". Manufacturers just choose to agree to a lower price than they could otherwise get away with, which causes shortages and rationing.
By "restrict what they do with them" I didn't mean the iPad's technological lock-down stuff, just the fact that Apple's attempting to stop resales, i.e. trying to control how people further down the supply chain dispose of the product.
I think it's ok to limit how many iPads you may buy for the time period when they are scarce. But banning him from buying another iPad for _life_ ist just ridiculous.
>often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons
If Joe Retailer can't or won't enter a particular market but Bill Reseller will, Joe selling products to Bill sounds like a pretty efficient solution to the problem of how to get the product into a market that wants to buy it.
Joe might have long term strategic reasons to want to keep his product out of that particular market, especially if the product can be seen as a loss leader for other products. In that cases the efficient solution for Joe is to to everything he can to keep his product only in markets where he stands to make the most long term profit, even if it means sacrificing short term sales.
In the real world you often have to think two three steps further than you had to do to pass econ 101.
Indeed - so there's nothing wrong with buying something through an intermediary (i.e. the cash in the parking lot deal - another free market transaction).
I would only delete "possibly" from your answer. The lack of any useful answer from the Apple store employee was troubling. The canned corporatespeak does not give a good impression of Apple as a company and the Apple Store as a retail outlet and employer.
But if you're a profit-oriented free market agent, and you see an arbitrage opportunity, would it be wrong to take advantage of it? Isn't objecting to arbitrage wrong? I don't see that the making of profit by buying low and selling high is wrong.
But creating an arbitrage opportunity by buying all of the supply that would be readily available if you hadn't intervened is wrong.
If there are 100 widgets and 200 people want widgets, it is wrong for a third party who has no particular desire for widgets to buy all 100 widgets and sell them for an insane markup. He changed a 50% deficiency of supply into a 100% supply, artificially reducing it. This allows him to artificially increase the price.
All in all, this is why I'm hardly ever a first adopter. I let the sharks and the morons fight over the buggy 1st generation crap and then swing around when the 2nd or 3rd generation hardware hype isn't out of control.
If you can pull off cornering a market, than you have earned your profit. It's very difficult in practise and people have probably lost more money than they won.
From Wikipedia:
"Although there have been many attempts to corner markets in everything from tin to cattle, to date very few of these attempts have ever succeeded; instead, most of these attempted corners have tended to break themselves spontaneously. The party attempting to corner a market can become very vulnerable due to the size of their position, especially if their attempt becomes widely known. If the rest of the market senses weakness, it may resist any attempt to artificially drive the market any further by actively taking opposing positions. When the price starts to move against the cornerer, they are in a very difficult position, as it is likely to be impossible to exit much of their position without catastrophically moving prices against themselves. In such a situation, many other parties will be able to profit from the cornerer's need to unwind their position." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market)
If there are only 100 widget and there is a price such that there are exactly 100 people willing to pay the price for a widget, not only is it ok to charge that price but its probably the _socially optimal_ price for the widget since it will be the people who want the widget most who will get it, rather than the widget being distributed randomly. So the markup isn't something insane, but rather what the manufacturer should have been charging in the first place.
The only bad part about reselling is that the manufacturer doesn't capture the extra sale price and invest it in making more widgets, so everyone can be happy.
Excellent reason to pay cash for your purchases, this is exactly the kind of privacy violation that people always think will never happen to them, but your credit card record is a nice way of tracking your previous interactions with the store.
Besides that, they were welcome to not sell him his second one, so I think they really messed up there.
As for being banned from buying ipads, he can always go to a different store and get them paid cash. Interesting how there is a 'lifetime limit' on customers buying your product, anybody else would be insanely happy about people buying more of the product.
The stonewalling on how many items you're allowed to order is the best bit, not only is there a rule, but you're not allowed to know it.
They probably have limits to avoid scalping. Some guy repeatedly coming in buying iPads 2 at a time fits the profile of a scalper, so they cut him off. There's probably an economics paper waiting to be written somewhere about how consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers handle these types of supply shortages.
Bingo! Not probably, it is very much the reason. They underestimated the demand and are attempting to prevent people like him from being a middle man. This isn't a big story.
If it's an underestimate of demand, that seems like a very common mistake--most gaming consoles and new Apple products have this exact same problem. Either they're systemically "underestimating" demand to mitigate risk or increase the prestige of the product (by making it rare and hard to get), or the peak demand for something like an iPad or Wii within the first month is just completely beyond any reasonable manufacturing capacity.
In an idealized market, of course, manufacturing capacity would ramp up with demand, but that's because price does, too. In reality, while the market price will go up enough for scalpers to play arbitrage, the producer doesn't capture this surplus and has no incentive to increase quantity supplied.
That's the risk mitigation part, and in the 90's Apple had a lot of problems like that (too much inventory of unwanted products) but then you start to wonder how, for instance, the Nintendo Wii went a whole year understocked.
It costs money to retool a factory to produce something different. If the cost of lost sales due to undersupply is lower than the cost of setting up another factory, it makes sense to undersupply.
I'm wondering if Apple could pull off the continuous auction approach with new products?
It would have worked like this for some period of time after the announcement but before the official release dates Apple would sell you a numbered product at a multiple of the announced retail price, the earlier the date, the higher the multiple. So the very first iThingy would go for say $100,000 and the next batch might go for $50,000 each, and the third batch would be priced at $25,000 and so on. This would let them practice almost perfect price discrimination; most customers would pay what the product was worth to them...
There are of course very good reasons Apple does not do this.
What are the reasons in your opinion? I can see that it might give them a bad reputation, but that could be mitigated by parting with most of the profits for charity.
Or are they trying to create an image of scarcity and desirability?
Or I didn't want to talk about pre-production. I meant to talk about the begin of the normal production run, where demand for hyped devices (say: Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone, iPad) far outstrips supply.
By the way, it may be rational for companies to let this happen, since mass production facilities cost a lot of money to set up, and they have to aim at the longer term demand instead of the spike at the beginning.
Right, ok that explains a bit about the stores actions, but still the guy at least says he did not profit from this, in fact it took him time and all he did was recover his expenses.
"hoarders who were unloading iPads on eBay to cash in on the $150+ markup. Instead, my asking prices were very reasonable, just enough to cover all the tax, international express shipping, and Paypal fees with a little left over for unexpected costs"
Notice how he specifically mentions a price for the "eBay hoarders", but avoids mentioning his markup. I wouldn't be surprised if his markup was close to $150 as well without actually ever being over. Like somewhere around $140.
His story is contrived in a way to give you a good impression of him and a negative one of the Apple store employees. Another couple of telling parts in the story are: "reservations are limited to one per iTunes account. Luckily I have a second account so I used that to place the reservation" and "Ok, so the gig is up" followed by a whole unnecessary conversation.
The first quote shows that he knows that what he is doing isn't exactly kosher with Apple. He is willingly and knowingly flaunting their policies.
The second quote shows that he realizes he's been had. He already knows why he was busted, but he persists in trying to troll the employees into saying something slanderous, like euphemisms for the fact that he's an unauthorized reseller.
I call into question the morals and ethics of the author of the post.
For every noble minded person who, out of the goodness of their own heart, runs other people's errands to the Apple Store, there's probably >1 scalper, on average.
Traditionally, yes. Scalpers constituted a small fraction of the market and were largely doing temporal arbitrage: there will be a certain number of people willing to pay a higher price on Day N than on Day N-X (where Day N-X is when tickets originally went on sale).
Modern scalping constitutes a far larger fraction of the market, and consists entirely of artificially limiting supply. You don't think those pop teen idol concerts would really naturally sell out in 30 seconds, do you? That happens because somebody's running an automated system that hammers the online purchase form.
Scalpers are the people you'd see standing outside of a sporting event selling tickets at a markup. It works out because if you don't care about the beginning, you can often times score them for very cheap.
There was a beer tasting event I went to a few months ago where tickets were ~$60. I showed up really really late (I was the designated driver anyhow) and got mine for something like $15 (which was cheaper than what the promoter was offering the "designated driver" tickets [which don't allow you to drink the beer] for).
June 5th, 1999: The New York Knicks are playing the Indiana Pacers in the NBA playoffs. At the time, I'm living in New Jersey, and I'm heading into Penn Station to go home. A scalper walks up to me (and everyone else, I suppose) and offers me a ticket to the game. The ticket's stamped price is $100 (maybe $125). The scalper wants $450. I think about it, think about it, think about it. I pass.
Hours later, with just over 6 seconds left in the game, Larry Johnson wins it for the Knicks with an amazing, once in a decade 4-point play. I'm at home, jumping up and down, screaming. (Links below for the play.)
So, yeah, that's a service charge, but not quite like Ticket Master.
Damn but that was a good game. That was the one and only time I've ever listened to a sports event of any nature on the radio, and I managed to get to a TV just in time for that play of Johnson's - fantastic even though I was in Indiana and rooting for the Pacers!
I think most retailers have policies to prevent scalping. I'd be more mad at Ticketmaster if I was you. (Most people already are, but not because their prices are too low!)
And to hell with the Green Bay Packers, if only their season tickets were more expensive, all those middle class people in rural Wisconsin wouldn't be able to afford them and the decades-long waiting list would just dry up! Stupid corporatists and their 3-4 defense.
Scalpers are a market-making phenomenon that occurs in free markets when a product has a set price that is artificially low for high demand; e.g. concert tickets, sports games tickets, etc.
Sometimes people want to sell things for below their cost, to let more people enjoy them than otherwise would. A scalper takes advantage of this incorrectly low price, buys the item, and resells it for it's true market value.
Except that scalpers are also a part of the market. When a large percentage of original purchases are by scalpers, they artificially up the market value.
Nope they can artificially increase the price by hoarding and making it less available.
Think about any commodity... everyone needs sugar/salt, what if somebody starts buying all the sugar from the market and hoards it... some people will start consuming less but the prices will increase due to lack of supply and more or less constant demand.. and then the person can open floodgates and make some dough in the process... Pretty common in Third world countries (and hence illegal)
Yes apple could have made the launch price higher - but then they would have to lower it after the launch to get the rest of the customers.
But the last time they did that, there was a firestorm as all the early customers were very mad at the very quick price reduction.
So apple chose to start at the more longterm price.
The correct way for them to handle it would be a premium or collectors or limited time edition. AKA the first ### buyers get a special dodad, or a signed shirt or some item to make them feel important. Then they pay extra, and don't feel cheated when it goes on sale at the regular market price.
> resells it at a price far above the initial cost
This is often what happens but it isn't a necessary condition to be a scalper. You can sell tickets for at or even below the initial cost and still be considered a scalper.
Indeed many scalpers often unload tickets for less than face value if they can't find a buyer at the price they want.
Unfortunately you must either use a credit card or leave empty-handed; Apple stores don't accept cash on these high-demand items in order to enforce this very policy. IIRC this was instituted some time after the launch of the original iPhone.
That said, enforcement is at least a little spotty. There are reports of Apple Store employees helping customers circumvent the no-cash policy by taking the cash for a gift card, and immediately accepting the gift card for the original merchandise. In the other direction, there are also reports of purchases with gift cards being denied for the same reason as cash.
I guess you can pretend to pay with a credit card, then cancel the transaction (or something). Since you have the product now, you have a debt with them, and could pay them with cash.
Of course, in theory they could counter that by having an artificial hight price (say a few millions), but give you a discount (down to the normal price) if you pay with a credit card. This way you wouldn't want to pay cash.
Interesting. There are lots of people that do not have a credit card and that do not want one.
It's a pretty bad policy if you have to go so far as to enforce it by making your customers pay in a way that is more expensive to them than paying in cash.
I have no problem with the iPad-limit policy. The annoying part was that the clerk was not able to volunteer any information at all about what the policy actually says. From the customer's tone it seems like he wasn't going to throw a fit, but it would be nice if Apple were slightly more forthcoming.
I don't know - I doubt it. I've dealt with situations like this before. The clerk is told by his boss what to say. In this case he probably is not allowed. He phrased it very specifically if you notice. "All I can say is..."
Banning people who are obviously buying stuff for resale is extremely common in luxury goods retail. There's a book "Bringing Home the Birkin" about a guy who had an entire lifestyle based around skirting Hermes rules about buying too many Birkin bags.
I agree Apple has to limit the number of unit purchased per individual, but a lifetime ban? On an undisclosed policy?
The "undisclosed" part is what bothers me more. I was banned from AdSense for some reason Google can't tell, but when I asked them to check if whatever I did was really done, they came back a week later saying "yes, we checked it and you pretty much did whatever we said you did, but we still won't tell you what you did"
If someone writes me a letter stating I am in violation of such and such policy, I go in and fix whatever is wrong. I can't fix stuff they don't tell me.
In the end it was good. My blog makes a couple times more money now than it did with AdSense.
If they tell you and everyone else trying to game the system and find loopholes then the policy becomes much more complicated than it needs to be. There is a reason laws are written in a specific sort of legal jargon, and most stores would probably like to avoid this situation. The general policy of most stores in my experience has been "don't be a dick", but for some reason people seem to think they are entitled to get a written copy of the policy (usually so they can see if there are any loopholes they can take advantage of...)
It's a good example of how corporate policies create a pseudo-government and censorship environment, and our ethical ideas have not caught up to deal with it.
Let's keep in mind WHY he was doing it: to send to other countries. But that's okay to bar him, because Apple doesn't explicitly mention race or nationality, they just don't sell them elsewhere. So what we've got is a type of class-system based on nation states and residencies. And most people consider that normal and reasonable. In my opinion this classism is not a minor issue, and in the future it's going to be a bigger as the U.S. steadily loses economic superpower status, whether it happens now or later.
Or instead imagine Apple as a Chinese company and China continues its progress and actually manages to usurp the United States as economic superpower and someone gets banned for life for purchasing an iPad for American friends. Seems sorta craptacular all of a sudden.
I ended up missing out on the first shipment of iPads to Toledo, OH due to similar caginess by my local retailer. After finding out on the evening news that the device sold out here, I visited the store in person to complain. The store owner(?) was very apologetic to me, explaining that Apple gave them a very strict script they had to follow when fielding questions before the release. They couldn't even tell me that they were getting any at all on launch day, or that even putting down my name was pointless. (In retrospect, some of their choices of wording to me over the prior month should have tipped me off to wait before the store opened. Afterwards, the store guy confessed that they weren't even allowed to recommend that!)
"One day, when Gregor emerges from his room, his father chases him around the dining room table and pelts him with apples. One of the apples becomes embedded in his back, causing an infection. Due to his infection and his hunger, Gregor is soon barely able to move at all." (via wikipedia)
This is by far the best article I have read about the iPad. It pretty much sums up Apple in so many ways - you follow their rules, some of which are unspoken, or you don't play.
"best article about the iPad"..? The article isn't really about the iPad at all. And I think you're exaggerating. It's not the first time a store or reseller puts a harsh limit on items (does the "one per household" term spring to mind at all?) It also seems as if the guy has been "ticket scalping", which I believe no reseller anywhere accepts. The entire experience the guy writes about is common practice like... everywhere.
Yes, I was exaggerating... I will make that clear next time. I don't like the direction the iPad is taking software development, so this was the first one that I actually had a good laugh reading which is what I was refering to.
I will assume you are exaggerating on "entire experience the guy writes about is common practice like... everywhere". I've bought lots of newly released Dell computers and never ran into it... matter of fact, they wanted to sell me even more. It is all a game that Apple (and others) play to make you want to get it and to feed off early adaptors. If someone wants to be an idiot and buy one for more the MSRP, let them. Dealerships do that all the time.
I have no idea why they do that. That’s why I remembered it :)
It’s for the cheapest noodles, you can presumably buy as much brand name noodles as you like. Maybe their cheap noodles are even cheaper than the cheapest in the local wholesale market and they don’t want all the pizzerias within reach come rolling in.
It also seems as if the guy has been "ticket scalping", which I believe no reseller anywhere accepts.
I am sure if I bought 10 eeepcs or something from Amazon, they would be more than happy to fill my order. And if I wanted 10 more, they would send me those, too. It's like if you give them money, they give you the product, or something. Pretty awesome.
Anyway, why doesn't the OP go to Best Buy or something to get the rest of the iPads? They probably don't care how many he buys. (Or rather, the shifts change frequently enough that nobody will recognize him.)
Anyway, why doesn't the OP go to Best Buy or something to get the rest of the iPads?
They probably don't have any, and that's important here. Unlike the EEE example, the context here is that the iPad is in short supply. So short that even the Apple store he was buying from had ran out of stock--as have most. The story he tells is about picking up one he had reserved several days earlier, and reserving yet another while he was there.
Now, from the retailer's perspective, this guy is taking the limited supply away from their actual customers. Even though a sale is a sale and they are making the same amount of money from it, they have no incentive to sell to him over anybody else in line. It's going to get sold anyway--and if you have to pick between selling it to an end consumer vs. selling it to a middle-man who is going to raise the price to your end consumer, you're probably going to chose the end consumer. It sucks if said middle-man was really just trying to do a favor for international buyers that can't get one any other way, but his purchasing behavior is indistinguishable from someone who is just profiteering.
If supply were adequate (as it is for EEEs, presumably) then they probably wouldn't have taken notice.
this guy is taking the limited supply away from their actual customers
What is an "actual customer"? Last time I checked, if someone is in your store, wants to buy something from you, and have handed you their credit card to pay for the thing of yours they want, they are a pretty fucking excellent customer. The best, you could go so far as to say.
If you're worried about a secondary market, make more of your thing. Then the secondary market is fucked.
I love how you ignore every single relevant detail here in favor of an interpretation that doesn't fit anything but your existing biases. I love consistency like that, it's amazing.
What is an "actual customer"?
Someone who is going to actually use the product they are buying from you, as opposed to someone whose sole intent is to capitalize on your product's scarcity. The end consumer, as opposed to the middle-man.
they are a pretty fucking excellent customer.
And what about the next guy in line? The "actual customer" as above, who doesn't get your product because you're too busy selling it to the guy who's only interested in making it even more scarce. Like I said before, you make the same amount of money from the sale, but if you can afford to be choosy about your customers (and in this situation, Apple can), the "actual customer" is the one you want to favor. The retailer has no incentive to favor the middle-man, who at best is going to raise the price to the end consumer without earning you a cent.
If you're worried about a secondary market, make more of your thing.
In what bizarro world does this happen instantaneously?
Luckily for you, there is no shortage of eeepc's. But if you ordered 10 Nintendo Wii's in December of 2006, you may have had a harder time (yes, even at Best Buy). Same applies here.
You've certainly helped highlight Apple's narcissism and tendency towards being a god-damned control freak. Making and selling products is about making and selling products. They sold a bunch to this guy -- customers are to be appreciated. Volume and repeat customers, who expose your wares to larger audiences, are to be cherished.
Apple? they abuse them.
Substitute 'developer' for 'customer' in the above -- still true.
The iPads were being shipped out of the country. Are there certification/liability issues involved here where Apple is not permitted to put a device on sale unless approved by gov't regulators? Could this be a factor? I recall how Israel has been (still is?) banning and confiscating the iPad.
Factor in the innate hilarity of anything involving the iCult with the soup nazi reference and you have what the kids call "comedy gold". There isn't any outrage here, just slightly amused contempt for the ridiculous way the retail drones handled things.
I think it's f-n awesome he got banned for life. If you read the article carefully he tells you the reason why - he is buying and selling these marked up (though he 'claims' he wasn't as bad as others - yeah right!). I hate duecebags like this... you didn't play by the rules and you got burned. So it goes.
Oh and really what does it matter, if the guy wants an ipad legit he can get someone to buy him one later. Or get it used off ebay later. This will just stop his bs mark-up scam, and probably scare off others doing it.
Ah well, didn't know that price, drag for him. Either way, it's not a big deal, he can still easily buy them if he really wants too.
I think people would have a different reaction if this was their company. They have the right to decide how and when they roll their products out, and mostly this is an effort to keep the 'pro' traders at bay. They know this just makes it harder, it doesn't stop them, but it slows them down.
A friend of mine manages a high-end retail store in the area. He tells me that there are a number of people who match this buying profile. The products either show up on Craigslist, eBay, or are moved out of state to be sold elsewhere, often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons. Like it or not, in pretty much any retail environment, this practice is unacceptable.
He also tells me that these small groups of people will often approach customers in the parking lot as they exit their vehicle, offering them cash to enter the store, buy the goods with a few crisp hundred-dollar bills, and to keep the change. This gray market is very real.
Beyond that, the guy admits he knew of the policy and was willingly violating it. There's really not much room for outrage here.