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dscan99

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 10, 2004
137
0
Nashville, TN
I was wondering if any Canadians on board here have purchased mac items from macmall.com or any other site besides the official apple.ca ?? Are there discount online canadian sites for this stuff?
Or in the case of MAcmall.com, do the rebates and the free shipping apply to canada?

Thanks!
 

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Umm. You would have to read the policies of the vendor in question.

For Apple Branded products: NO Apple Online Store programs can be assumed to be available through dealers (free shipping, student discounts, iPod deals) unless they are 1) a mail in rebate that Apple Canada honours through authorized resellers or 2) the reseller matches it with their own program. Read all the fine print.

Almost all US resellers will not offer free shipping into Canada, some won't ship into Canada at all because of licensing restrictions. And with US, you have the issues of customs brokerage and shipping costs to bring the units in. The non-computer goods (like displays) that are manufactured in China or Malaysia are not covered by NAFTA so there may be 6% duty on them as well.

There are Canadian mail order sellers, but you will rarely if ever get a discount off the Apple price -- Apple's wholesale prices are 3% to 10% below retail, so no reseller can afford to discount any appreciable amount. Recent deals from Best Buy for example turned out to be the previous generation machine with Panther and less RAM than the current machine -- for a glorious $30 off. Most mail order Apple sellers will charge sales tax in each province.

My recommendation is to go and visit your local independent Apple retailers first. If there is a store that you are comfortable with (service, selection) then patronize them -- remembering that the Apple Store price is the standard anyway.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 

dscan99

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 10, 2004
137
0
Nashville, TN
Thanks Trevor. I was a bit wary about ordering from such discount websites.. I think I will stick to my local apple store. :)
 
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