Apple Resellers and Service Providers Speak Out Following Simply Mac Closures

[ventricle]

My experience was that my local reseller got me to spend more on Apple products and peripherals than when the new local Apple Store made his business untenable. By then there was practically no margin on selling Apple hardware left to cover selling costs. The overall service was superb. The Apple Store in contrast reminds me of a supermarket with walking registers and limited brands — great at handling volume. I often walk buy and spy the ‘can’ in the remote, lonely corner connected to hardly anything. My reseller would have all sorts of stuff connected to its towers. And they would tell me straight if a product was not up to standards, or if I should hold off for an impending upgrade or an item would be discounted soon — ie., they served me.

 

[Unami]

Heard the same from people working at premium apple resellers in my country. Really low margins (and resulting low wages for the store staff) for such premium products.

When apple will be finally opening a store over here, it surely will push some over the edge. Which is sad, because i rather prefer the local, personalized feeling to the streamlined and globalized gloss of an actual apple store.

I remember the first time I went into one of those apple resellers, seeing all sorts of cool music equipment connected to macs, which really sold me on them.

 

[n8236]

Let's keep this simple and think logically. A massive closure like this usually happens when some broad stroke of agreement w/ whoever owns you makes changes. With rent increases, wage increases or other increases over time...those usually slowly kill off stores, not in mass. With Apple further strangling their profits and asking to more $ upfront, you bet there's only so much they can do to stay afloat. Apple used to innovate and people bought it for good reason...now that they've peaked, they have to look under every rock to squeeze $.

 

[dilbert99]

The decline of independent mac resellers is actually OK with me. Apple does a better job of selling and servicing its products.

For example, Best Buy doesn't do a great job of selling Apple products, at least at my local store. The products are farther away from the door than nearly all the other computers. The sales people are overbearing and not knowledgeable about Macs. Also, the Simply Mac in my area has a bad reputation for being poorly managed. As an Apple investor, I'm actually relived this store is shutting down.

So, I would like to see Apple slowly take over all of its own retail. I think it would be a good business move and good for its customers.

when you have no choice, prices rise...

 

[unplugme71]

So the moral of the story seems to be, as with all things, YMMV. Some are doing badly, some are getting by, and some are thriving. Welcome to this thing we call life.

I wonder if the ones doing badly are visited by Apple reps at all and maybe they feel they don't live up to the Apple culture. Maybe their stores are not 'Mac' like or something.

Apple is very particular not only of their retail stores, but also those of third parties.

 

[falainber]

After finishing the article I was confused to what it is saying. All I got is some folks like being an Apple reseller and others don't. I think you summed it up well.

What's so confusing? The resellers say one thing privately and very different thing publicly. Do you really expect Apple reseller to criticize Apple on record?

 

[nutjob]

"nothing more than glorified TV repairmen." kina nails it, how are they not exactly this?

 

[dk001]

I will add in (as a small business owner in the past) that if Apple is pushing out payments to the resellers/repair, this is a death sentence for the smaller operations unless they are cash heavy and very profitable. You can believe that Apple knew what it was doing with that act.

 

[wolfaaron]

Simply Mac is the only Apple Store within 100 miles of me. I used to live down the street from an Apple Store in Utah until I moved to Idaho. My iPhone 6S is having the battery issue where it shuts down at 30% of battery at random times and Apple told me to go to Simply Mac for a repair. Simply Mac gave me the runaround for 2 days until they finally told me the truth: they don't do iPhone battery replacements in store but they could mail it for me to Apple and I'd get it back in 1-2 weeks.

About 3 months later and I still have a faulty battery. I'm going on a trip to Utah and while I'm there I'm getting it repaired. I don't know why they want to sell Apple products but refuse to fix them when they have issues. I would have bought my macbook from them if they would fixed my phone.

 

[Frixo Cool]

It's true, Apple is slowly killing-off independent resellers, in Europe too.

Margins are so low that there is a whole array of cheaper Apple hardware that is not profitable to sell at all! For example margins on iPads and iPhones do not even cover the shipping cost from the central warehouse to retail store. So, today many resellers are just focused on MacBooks and iMacs because of higher price that can cover shipping and some minimal profit.

The problem is that all those small AARs are in smaller cities where there is no Apple Premium Reseller, so users are left with nothing - or they have to travel to capital city to buy what they want.

It's not fair to users and it's not fair to those resellers, many of them doing it for 15 or more years...