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Morbid curiosity, does Best Buy.....

G

green junkie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
17
0
Just curious I know that Apple sells their products in the more traditional vs the PC world. Which is I believe the hardware developers are able to lower the price by allow software companies to put bloat ware on it and to top it off they need to sell a lot of them because the profit margin is so low.

So my question is do stores like Best Buy make a bigger profit off of selling Apple laptops then they do when they sell a TV or a PC?
 
green junkie said:
Just curious I know that Apple sells their products in the more traditional vs the PC world. Which is I believe the hardware developers are able to lower the price by allow software companies to put bloat ware on it and to top it off they need to sell a lot of them because the profit margin is so low.

So my question is do stores like Best Buy make a bigger profit off of selling Apple laptops then they do when they sell a TV or a PC?
Click to expand...

Nope. PC's make a retailer nothing (or a VERY small amount). TV's on the other hand and audio equipment as well as accessories like cables and things have a very high markup.

Computers, music, dvds, and video games (consoles and systems) are used to get you in the door to push services and accessories. Some computers (Sony's used to be this way) actually lose the retailer money as do printers (although ink has a markup).

Basically the only way a business makes money on computers is if you buy accessories, services, and a warranty with it.

Source: Me. I worked at Circuit City and Best Buy back in the day.
 
So does Sony or Samsung make money directly from the customer when they sell you an laptop? Or do they make most of their money from the bloatware that is on it?

I heard that Apple was the only company that had an traditional mark up on their products. And were the only ones making money directly from the customer while other companies did it is some weird back handed way risky. Like the Kindle loosing amazon money but hoping that it will cause people to buy more from their store. Or Google giving Android away for free and making profit off of the advertising....
 
green junkie said:
So does Sony or Samsung make money directly from the customer when they sell you an laptop? Or do they make most of their money from the bloatware that is on it?

I heard that Apple was the only company that had an traditional mark up on their products. And were the only ones making money directly from the customer while other companies did it is some weird back handed way risky. Like the Kindle loosing amazon money but hoping that it will cause people to buy more from their store. Or Google giving Android away for free and making profit off of the advertising....
Click to expand...

The other companies basically make money on bloatware. They also will have a markup to the vendor (Best Buy, Staples, etc) but it gets slimmer and slimmer as consumers expect cheaper PC prices.

Apple does have a markup since they make money from the hardware. This markup is on anything that leaves Apple whether its going to Best Buy, Staples, or a regular consumer. This is why you'll see prices the same all over the place.

Every now and then you'll find a place that sells an Apple product cheaper (Sams does this sometimes).


As for backhanded ways I think Sony is the king of that :p When the PS3 launched Sony lost about $300 on every device sold. They later dropped backwards compatibility to aleviate the hefty loss (since backwards compatibility made it very expensive to produce). They in the end make money from licensing the use of their PS3 hardware to game companies (its a fee game devs have to pay to launch their game on a system) as well as many other services like the online store.
 
chrono1081 said:
As for backhanded ways I think Sony is the king of that :p When the PS3 launched Sony lost about $300 on every device sold. They later dropped backwards compatibility to aleviate the hefty loss (since backwards compatibility made it very expensive to produce). They in the end make money from licensing the use of their PS3 hardware to game companies (its a fee game devs have to pay to launch their game on a system) as well as many other services like the online store.
Click to expand...


I remember hearing on the news that even after the PS3 was out for 2-4 years Sony was still selling large numbers of PS2. I think PS2 was out selling the Wii world wide. Because of the lack of backwards compatibility.
 
I didn't know the PS2 capabilities in the PS3 cost so much to produce, I always thought it was because Sony wanted the PS2 dead because people were still buying large amounts of PS2 games instead of PS3.

Changed my perspective a bit if that's true.
 
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