“Apple has apparently fired the first shot in the holiday shopping battle, by announcing internally that retail store employees have the authority to match the prices of other authorized retailers,” ifoAppleStore reports.
“Up to now, the stores have not given managers the ability to approve certain ‘deals,’ but there has been no general price matching policy,” ifoAppleStore reports.
“The price flexibility does come with some restrictions, including the customer supplying proof of the competitor’s pricing,” ifoAppleStore reports.
Full article here.
Will that include online vendors?
I assume that is price matching on Apple and 3rd party products. Can’t price match a junk PC and a Mac. That is like price matching a bicycle and a motorcycle.
You could compare Vista and OS X features as long as they don’t have to work as advertised.
just on ‘competitor’s’ (best buy?) pricing of apple’s products? or similarly specs computers (dell vs. appl)?
This is not new at all. They have been able to price match for years now and have taken advantage of it on numerous occasion. Item for item mind you but brick and mortar and online were all fair game.
MW: Suddenly: as in someone suddenly finds this out and thinks it is news worthy.
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! AND NO PAYMENTS ‘TILL FEBRUARY! HURRY!!!!
Wal-mart… beats every price.
Online vendors will still win out if tax is not paid. I picked up my iPod Touch for $289 – free shipping, no tax – from MacConnection. Of course, if Apple is going to price match, what’s incentive is there for others to carry Apple products?
If they won’t price items via fair market value, why bother proving to them their own overpriced arrogance on accessories, just so you can buy it from “their” store? One of the ipod speaker docks they sell in store I can get for 2/3 the price elsewhere, shipped to my door. Why bother?
@raymond in DC
is that the first gen touch or second? I know MacMall sells the older versions of Apple products not sure about MacConnection.
@currentinterest
Most likely not, there would be tons of people bringing in ADs from mac mall only to find out its not the same model. But if they do it will just be like best buy who will exclude certain online places whom are questionable.
@this is made 4
well apple will beat their price apparently.. so they will not be beating everyone’s price.
Of course, one related piece of news that MDN isn’t giving you is that Apple has cut Macbook production by 20-30% (at the same time as HP reports that their notebook revenue has grown 26%). Link here: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20081110PB200.html
@ Informed Reader
As a former Apple Store employee I know for a fact that store policy was that we wouldn’t match competitor’s pricing; even authorized retailers. We all thought it was lame, but it was corporate policy and we had to stick with it. If someone has bent the rules for you they didn’t follow policy.
I’m sure this is a welcome change for all of those store employees who have wanted to help out exasperated customers but were forced to tell them we couldn’t do anything for them.
Uh, Apple kinda sets their competitors prices.
Can they match snappiness?
@ No Walls
If you believe Apple are not going to grow Mac sales in the current quarter you are deluded.
Try this analysis for a start.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/25/piper_jaffray_addresses_12_more_unanswered_apple_questions.html
And whatever HP does that’s fine by me, I just feel sorry for all those poor souls having to try and stay happy at the same time as running Windows.
@WhyBother?
You have a bad attitude, dude. Apple retail stores generally carry an excellent selection of high-quality, third-party products. Even if you prefer to buy online, an Apple store is a great place to quickly see what’s available.
And since when does charging retail (heaven forbid!) automatically make a store “arrogant”? If you don’t like the price, don’t buy the product.
@ No Walls
Try Googling “Digitimes” and “inaccurate”!
So, in other words, once again Apple screws it’s “partners.” At this point, being an “Apple Authorized Reseller” is almost as worthwhile as building “PlaysForSure” music players.
You’re killing me Laaaarrrrryyyyyyyyyy!
I thought Apple controlled the channel so tightly that no one could sell them any cheaper, all an authorized retailer could do was throw in some free stuff to sweeten the deal.
@ The Rev.
You know what Tought did.
@ Zorrin
Been in place for years. It was even printed on signage on the walls at some stores at one time. Now if the practice is not being used at a particular store then that is another story.
to Informed Reader:
Apple Retail’s corporate policy (across all of their retail stores) is that they DO NOT do price matching. Local store managers were allowed to make exceptions if they deemed them good for business. However, the overall policy explicitly disallowed this. I’m not sure what signage on what walls of which store could you have seen and at which time, but this is the official policy.
Therefore, the news here is, even if the managers were allowed to make excpetions (and therefore some of them made them frequently), it was not allowed before, and for this holiday season, they seem to be going for the jugular.
@Raymond in DC – don’t you report your unpaid state taxes from internet purchases as part of your annual IRS filing?
1: Stop at Walmart, buy a $300 Linux laptop PC and save receipt.
2: Go to Apple Store and demand a $300 MacBook.
3: Return to Walmart and return the Linux PC.
4: Sell the MacBook on eBay for $1000
5: PROFIT!!
Look up your name in Wikipedia and there’s a picture of an anus.