“In a move to improve its bottom line, Dell is changing its shipping options for its low-end desktop and notebook computers, ending a promotion that offered free shipping to customers’ homes,” Red Herring reports. “The policy, which goes into effect October 10, encourages buyers of the company’s least expensive computers to go to the post office to pick up the boxes if they still want the free shipping. It is part of a “hold for pickup” program launched by the U.S. Postal Service Thursday.”
“Dell, like many computer makers, has been cutting back on prices to ship more units and grab market share. But the severely reduced prices are cutting into hardware makers’ profit margins,” Red Herring reports. “Dell PCs lately have been suffering in consumer ratings of reliability and service, according to BusinessWeek. Complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau increased 23 percent in 2004 compared to 2003, and rose another 5 percent in 2005. The company’s customer satisfaction rating also fell 6.3 percent to the industry average of 74 in a survey by the University of Michigan.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Get free ground shipping on all in-stock orders totaling $50 or more at the Apple Store.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple continues to lead in customer satisfaction, Dell loses more ground – August 16, 2005
Apple Macintosh leads in personal computer customer satisfaction – August 24, 2004
Apple Macs top PC Magazine’s ’17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey’ – August 10, 2004
Mac—Free shipping.
More importantly…
Mac = Not Dell
Ahh, Good times.
So now people will have to pay to have lightbulbs (sorry, dell xps laptops that is) delivered to their house… poor chaps!
no free lunch
Dell to customers: “Hey ****nut go pick it up yourself, shithead!”
LOL Isn’t it kind of pathetic that the free shipping is cutting into their profits that much? We can only hope one day Dell will drive itself out of business.
Dell charges for shipping.
Uh, so?
Might as well tell me Hillary Clinton will be charging those who vote for her.
So what?
I’ll poop in a plastic bag and send it to you free of charge. Looks like my poop finally has an advantage over Dell (barely).
Now you know why Apple doesn’t play in the low margin arena.
Dell has realized their fate, the fate that happened to IBM, to Compaq, to Gateway and the rest. They race to the bottom in price, sacrificing quality, playing on the customers desire for cheap cheap cheap and wind up getting a name for themselves as a garbage generator.
Dell has recently introduced a line of rather expensive PC’s, hoping to grab some of the high end market, but it’s already too late. The word is out, Dells are cheap garbage and everybody knows it.
Anyone who is anyone with brains and cash buys a Mac, plain and simple, nothing Dell can do about that. Perhaps why Dell was hoping to sell a OSx86 for Apple. (fat chance Michael Dell)
So now Dell’s star is fading, just like all the other PC makers before them, soon they will be not making a profit like HP, Gateway are and IBM was. (they sold their PC division)
The time is right for Apple to take over, with Dell in decline and Microsoft barely breathing.
Tired of pop-unders?
Add this (or any url) to your /etc/hosts
0.0.0.0 ads.adsonar.com
0.0.0.0 js.adsonar.com
0.0.0.0 z1.adserver.com
0.0.0.0 media.fastclick.net
By following these instructions
http://dreamlight.com/insights/bugs/Apple/lookupd.html
Apple survives by providing the best computers for the best people.
The rest can go to D-Hell.
😀
This is why Apple doesn’t play in the low margin area of the computing market. When you race to the bottom on price to increase market share, you lose quality, support and innovation along the way.
If they need to cut down on free shipping what Dell was making out of its cheapo PCs? Few bucks here and there?
Looks like they cut as much in the past as to be selling at a loss now are selling now at a loss.
Dude,
one thing that needs to be proved yet is whether Dell ever had quality support and innovation.
That would be the revelation of the year…
sorry for the above post: MDN, prune it
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MDN word “human” as in Errare humanum est
Hold for pickup is actually a good idea. How many of us are at work and not able to be home to get delivery anyway?
And Apple offer´s “free shipping”? Attention Macwidgetheads – there is no such thing as “free” anything. You are paying for it one way or another.
Dell has always had a shipping price here in the Netherlands (well.. those times I did check) and a very hefty one too! 80 euros usually! In the small print of course. Oh, and clicking on a link on the Dell site of inexplicably increases the price of the product on the next page. Dell is very good at very cheap selling techniques. Bleh!
MW ‘through’ as in ‘I see right through Dell!’
“A good reputation is more valuable than money.”
[Publilius Syrus (1st century B.C.), Roman writer of mimes. Sententiae, no. 108.]
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”
[William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Cassio, in Othello, act 2, sc. 3, l. 262-4.]
Perhaps now you know the foundation of Steve’s decision not to follow the industry’s lemmings of conventional design and marketing. You will never be noticed if all you do is add to the dull din of the background noise; the grey fog of conventionalism.
This can be very good advice for your own life, too.
Very well illustrated here…
http://homepage.mac.com/gmadigan/iMovieTheater33.html
I have to say that Dell really has managed to make itself into a poor commodity product that anyone with a choice would avoid. What’s astonishing is that they never realised this until it was too late.
Again, the cheapness -and ugliness- of the box for me reflects the complexity -and ugliness- of the software on which it runs…
Hey MacAnimal,
Not once have I ever gotten a pop-under or pop-up on my Mac. I’m curious what settings/browsers people are using to get them?
“With a high price you only have to apologize once, with low quality you have to apologize forever.”
Jump wrote “Not once have I ever gotten a pop-under or pop-up on my Mac. I’m curious what settings/browsers people are using to get them?”
I use Safari and got tired of turning Javascript off just to visit MDN to avoid the pop-unders. I need javascript for other sites all the time.
I have Safari’s pop-up blocker on obviously.
I could use another browser, (firefox has been having security issues) but I think it’s important to hit sites with Safari to tell them Mac users are still alive and doing well. 😀
I think Dell should close its doors and divide the money up between all its stockholders.
Most people I have spoken with buy Dells not because they are so good, but because they are so cheap. Then many of those complain that they are having “computer problems” which are really Windows-related problems. They complain that they have to pay $90 or so for snotty support from Dell and I’d dare say that most of their support calls are either user related or Windows related in nature.
So this whole cheapo (low quality) is coming back to bite Dell in a big way: when you make a product as cheaply as humanly possiable, quality suffers big time. Plus this whole other related subject with Windows is a double whammy.
I’d love nothing more (aside from an end of war and world hunger) to see Dell and Microsoft be crippled.
However a lot of folks will continue to buy Dells because it is so cheap and Windows “is the standard.”
Well boys and girls, cheap is never good…time to have better standards.
Shiny.