Stan Beer
Monday, 21 July 2008 06:51
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
The news that consumers are still lining up to get into the new Sydney Apple store is astounding, but if any of them are actually buying anything other than an iPhone, they're crazy.
There's no doubt about it, the Apple Store is a
handy way to check out exactly what Apple has on offer all in one
place. There's plenty of stock of Apple's complete range of products
and well trained people on hand to show you how it all works.
However, whatever you see at the Apple Store, if you don't do a quick
ring around to a range of Apple resellers then you will most likely be
doing yourself out of money. How much? Judging by my experiences this
week, a substantial amount.
US readers please ignore what will seem to you to be crazy prices for
most of the examples I give below. Even though our dollars are almost
at parity these days, we Australians for some reason still have to pay
a lot more for most of our Apple gear, But that's another story.
Anyway, last weekend we went looking for an iPod Touch. Specifically,
we decided that the 16GB model was the one that suited our needs. One
look at the online Apple Store shows that the price is $499 and that's
what you will pay at the physical store in Sydney as well, which the
Apple saleswoman at the store confirmed.
A few phone calls to a number of major electronics retail chains
confirmed that we could do a lot better than that - and I mean a lot!
Nearly all of the retailers - Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, Dick Smith and
Retravision - had the iPod Touch 16GB on sale just marginally cheaper
than the Apple Store, two of them at $496, Harvey Norman had it on sale
for $474, and Retravision a low $468.
