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Teenager Sells $130,000 Worth of White iPhone 4 Conversion Kits

Small White Car said:
It's always depressing to see someone else succeed at such an obvious idea. Maybe next time...
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The idea is nothing. The kid obviously put time and effort into finding a decent supplier at a low price, marketing, web development. Hats off to him.

If you think you can develop a good idea then go ahead and try, there's loads here: www.ideaaday.org

Do me a favour and PM me so I can track your progress.
 
Lol

Lol the majority of comments on this story... Jealous!!!

This dude showed fantastic initiative!

And i'd say his markup is more near 50% than 10-15%.

A friend of mine actually does iPhone 4 repairs (on the blacks)- as Apple doesnt cover dropping and shattering your phone- and i believe the units, which are expensive as one cannot just replace the glass but also the LCD + digitizer on ip4, cost him around $100 and he fits them within up to half an hour for 200$.

Depending on how you react to the price you may get a 'discount' of 20%.

9/10 dont care just want their baby back lol:apple::D
 
Trafficking is a felony any way you look at it. So the 130,000 will pass on to his attorney's hands. In the end they all get caught.
 
Here ya go

Here's a great site to get this done.

I ordered my kit from a different supplier, but used Zeetron's videos to install my kit. With Zeetron, it's only $170 for the DIY kit, or for $200 total they'll install it with 2 way overnight shipping. Pretty sweet deal either way
 
most of the people who don't stop eating for like 3 months to buy an iPhone 4, will probably afford and buy that kit but the other ones like me won't do that

I don't even have an iPhone 4 !

Besides those things, I'm glad for that kid making so much money with such a brilliant idea.
 
I would bet by the time Apple gets done with him he will probably be broke. Assuming that is where the stolen goods are coming from, i would assume it's their property he is selling. To bad.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; nl-nl) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Does anyone know the wallpaper of white iphone in the picture?

Thanks!
 
I have ordered one of those white DIY Kits and it was easy to put on. I have it now for over 4 months in white and i must say am happy with it.

The only issue is the problem with the camera. The quality is not anymore as good as on black iPhone 4. It seems to be too bright because of light entering the iphone besides the camera hole :S

BUT STILL I WOULD BUY ONE AGAIN :) i love the people asking where i got this white iPhone from XD
 
Snowy_River said:
Unfortunately, you're wrong on most if not all counts.

First, it would be patented material, not copyrighted material. And patent infringement, especially design patents, is really quite easy to pursue.

Second, the Chinese supplier is "Foxconn", not "Foxcomm".

Third, and finally, in cases like these, as a general rule, even though Foxconn is the supplier, Apple is the owner of the parts. If Apple ordered that the parts in question be destroyed, putting them in a box and taking them home doesn't count, and certainly neither does selling them to a friend in the US. If they are the actual parts produced for Apple, then it is quite likely that they are, indeed stolen goods, and both this boy and the employee who got the parts for him are in trouble.

However, if the people involved were a bit smarter, then these parts would be from a production run not ordered by Apple. Under those circumstances, depending on how the contract is worded, there may have been enough wiggle room for them to sell these parts, especially given the fact that the actual Apple parts never went into formal production.

Finally, while it's arguably quite impressive that this kid was able to sell about 450 kits, to the tune of $130K, it's important to remember that this doesn't mean that he's made $130K. I would think it much more likely that he's getting maybe 10%-20% of that. Still, $13,000-$26,000 is not a bad haul for a couple months work...
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I own an import company. Mainly importing from china. I gaurantee his profit margins are higher than 10-20%. His profit margin is minimum 50-70%.

Also if the kid was smart he should have incorporated or created an LLC and than imported and sold all the merchandise under that company. If he did that than his legal liability is pretty limited. They could sue his company for what it was worth. Probably not much. The could fine his company, which he could just shut down and pay none of the fines. He could get away with it with barely paying anything. How do you think all these companies that import Kirf products work?
 
baypharm said:
Trafficking is a felony any way you look at it. So the 130,000 will pass on to his attorney's hands. In the end they all get caught.
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it's not trafficking. Its importing merchandise that you legally purchase from a foreign company. There MIGHT be patent infringement; etc. But you can read my above comment on how easily that could be dealt with. Attorney fees would not be $130k. you guys are dreaming. And notice there were no lawsuits filed. Just a "PI"
 
s.hasan546 said:
I own an import company. Mainly importing from china. I gaurantee his profit margins are higher than 10-20%. His profit margin is minimum 50-70%.

Also if the kid was smart he should have incorporated or created an LLC and than imported and sold all the merchandise under that company. If he did that than his legal liability is pretty limited. They could sue his company for what it was worth. Probably not much. The could fine his company, which he could just shut down and pay none of the fines. He could get away with it with barely paying anything. How do you think all these companies that import Kirf products work?
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Is this really bump worthy?
 
Hmm... Plastic parts from China. He probably pays $5 max for each kit. Very good profit I would say.


s.hasan546 said:
Also if the kid was smart he should have incorporated or created an LLC and than imported and sold all the merchandise under that company. If he did that than his legal liability is pretty limited. They could sue his company for what it was worth. Probably not much. The could fine his company, which he could just shut down and pay none of the fines. He could get away with it with barely paying anything. How do you think all these companies that import Kirf products work?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I will keep that in mind. Just in case I want to start a company that imports KIRF.
 
give em hell kid! really fantastic going lets just hope apple are far to busy skirmishing with samsung then picking on young businessmen rofl
 
SidBala said:
Hmm... Plastic parts from China. He probably pays $5 max for each kit. Very good profit I would say.
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They are neither plastic, nor remotely that cheap. The Home button is a single piece of plastic and thus pretty well meaningless (although still a complex mold with multiple colours of plastic), but the rear plate is a large piece of plastic with metal molded in, a substantial piece of glass which is printed and painted, and has a hole in it, and then there's the metal foil backing, the glass camera lens with its metal trim, the flash led diffuser, and some other bits and pieces. Whole thing considered, it's no wonder they sell for around $10 ish.

The front is a whole other kettle of fish. Not only the piece of painted glass with some holes in, but also a digitiser and a very-high-res LCD glued on. These still sell for around $70ish, even today, let alone when they were rare.
 
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