Apple Firewire cables - a price tag too far?

[Not-a-cliche]

If you've looked at Firewire cables recently, your first thought as a loyal Apple customer was probably "lol! ill check out teh apple firewir e cables!!1"

They probably look sexier than your computer, but the price tag is a little much I feel. I live in the UK, so all prices are in UKish (AKA Pounds) because I'm awesome.

I went to Amazon and typed in 'Apple Firewire cable'. The first result was the "Apple Firewire cable 4 to 6 pin 0.5 Meter", which was exactly the cable I want.

"Splendid!" I thought. "Now I may purchase my goods and be off to frolic in the meadows with my animal friends!"

But as I moved my eyes approximately 7 milimetres downwards, I was shocked to see that the price was £19!

"Jee wiz!" I thought. "Do Firewire cables really cost this much?"

I decided to look around for some other Firewire cables from different companies. I quickly found a much longer 1.8m 4 to 6 pin Firewire cable from Belkin for 1p! It looked ugly from the picture, but it's just a cable, and for £0.01!

Apple need to sort these prices out! I mean, not necessarily 1p, but somewhere around the £3 to £4 point would be nice. Who's going to buy a £20 cable!?

 

[spork183]

Who's going to buy a £20 cable!?

One word: Sucker... maybe apple will have a revelation, like when they realized how out of line their memory prices were (which, have you noticed, are in need of correction again...)

 

[Not-a-cliche]

One word: Sucker... maybe apple will have a revelation, like when they realized how out of line their memory prices were (which, have you noticed, are in need of correction again...)

I didn't know they corrected them in the first place.

 

[spork183]

I didn't know they corrected them in the first place.

They dropped the memory upgrade price for bto computers about 8-10 months ago. For a while, their upgrade prices weren't more than $10-20 over market, versus the old $50-100 over. At only $10-20 over market, I'll go with the memory upgrade when I order, every time.

 

[CanadaRAM]

But as I moved my eyes approximately 7 milimetres downwards, I was shocked to see that the price was £19!
I decided to look around for some other Firewire cables from different companies. I quickly found a much longer 1.8m 4 to 6 pin Firewire cable from Belkin for 1p! It looked ugly from the picture, but it's just a cable, and for £0.01!

The .01 price is obviously a mistake, or a bundled promo with a drive.
If you go to a shop, you will see Firewire cables at about $18.95 - $24.95 here
Cables are one of the few things that retailers make good markup on, so they rely on selling you the $99 printer (they make $8) and the $ 15.95 USB cable (they make $11) for a total profit of about 16%. It takes about 14% profit to pay the employes, the rent, the freight and keep the lights on.

Online sellers have a different cost/profit model, so you see Monoprice.com who sell mail-order at essentially the wholesale price that the retailer buys at.

Apple's profit model, of course relies at selling both online and in the company stores, at full list price.

 

[Not-a-cliche]

The .01 price is obviously a mistake, or a bundled promo with a drive.

I'm pretty sure Amazon wouldn't do that - and if it's a mistake, then it's a very common mistake.

 

[portent]

Incidentally, the US Apple Store sells the firewire cables for USD14...about GBP7

The folks that sell the GBP.01 cables make their money on "shipping," but it's still a good deal.

 

[bijou]

I purchase all cables such as this from monoprice.com. They are by far one of the least expensive sources and have excellent customer service.