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Why Costco keeps increasing the price on Macbook Pro 16”?
- Thread starter hajime
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Sounds like Apple has reduced its margins a bit to match where Costco used to aim. There's always Black Friday assuming prices don't shoot up even further before then.
I’m guessing they sold their stock at the old price, and their price went up from Apple, so they increased their pricing.
Costco makes its money from memberships. They really don’t endeavor to create large margins on their inventory.
Costco makes its money from memberships. They really don’t endeavor to create large margins on their inventory.
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maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I would assume because Apple is charging them more.
When OEMs increase their price, the resellers are passing those increases on to the consumer.
Apple operates on a JIT inventory hence the price rises plus the quarterly supplier contracts for NAND chips. What makes you think Costco is any different with regard to IT hardware and specifically that which comes from Apple? Not defending anyone here but why are you assuming that Costco or any retailer has a huge stockpile of Apple hardware? Just about every computer is going through price increases because key components are in short supply. If you can think of any major manufacturer that can still supply new kit at pre-AI monopoly prices let us know.
Costco operates on a cost plus model, with the massive bulk income coming from their memberships . Apple does not.
Costco has shipment warehouses all over the country. And even then, just because they don’t have the physical device doesn’t mean they didn’t have an agreement with Apple for x amount of their stock. Then that stock was depleted.
GregoryPeckEPA
macrumors regular
Gotta subsidize all those AI data centres and the entire AI industry before it tanks and investors lose it all. The bubble popped some months ago and now they are scrambling to recoup losses as there is only a slim chance (can't rule anything out in this timeline) of a bailout (nothing to bailout as it's all propped up by "valuation").
It's all going to crumble, but before that happens, they need to siphon as much cash out of you as they can. The economic collapse that is coming is gonna make 2008 look like a great year.
It's all going to crumble, but before that happens, they need to siphon as much cash out of you as they can. The economic collapse that is coming is gonna make 2008 look like a great year.
I don’t like all these things. First Bitcoin caused rise in GPU cost and low in inventory. Now AI caused rise in RAM and SSD costs and low in some inventories such as the MB Air. Countless number of people are using AI to cheat. What next?
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Three things that drive prices up are:
- people who "rent" devices by using them and returning them within the free-returns period over and over
- people who think they will eventually get a 100% perfect screen if they just go through enough buy-inspect-exchange cycles
- people who demand 100% perfect outer shells and make repeated returns until they randomly get a "barely acceptable" 99.99% perfect one
TheIntruder
macrumors 68020
Costco is one retailer who has not been afraid to exert their leverage and has booted Apple in the past.
When Apple products returned to the warehouses after a few years, you can bet it was on their terms, not Apple's.
It wouldn't be raising prices if it didn't have to.
When Apple products returned to the warehouses after a few years, you can bet it was on their terms, not Apple's.
It wouldn't be raising prices if it didn't have to.
What screen problems are there? For the past 20 years, I have never seen any Apple laptops to have issues commonly seen on the screens of Windows laptops. In terms of shells, it happens very often. Especially on silver models, often a few black dots or scratches. Under Steve, this never happened.
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Given what is said here about Tim Cook's supply chain competencies, how extensive do you think that agreement would have been knowing that severe supply constraints were looming? I mean you can try to beat the clock but not if the factories are already limiting supply and that was happening last year already.
Bug-Creator
macrumors 68000
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Those items are a drop in a bucket compared to the other factors for apple. I suspect that the number of returns have little to no impact on Apple's bottom line, though I do think Costco's generous return policy was something that people took advantage of that did effect their bottom line.
The biggest factor, imo to the recent price increases is the cost of ram and SSDs,
I remember that just like anything else these days, before Costco raised the price for the first time, some people like to post everywhere on the internet as if he/she would die without telling the entire world. Then, it went out of stock. Stock came back and (don't remember the time interval) price increased and then increased again.
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Without break clauses and other gotchas? I doubt it. Look, Costco doesn't have a huge margin on its products as people have stated. It stands to reason that it won't want to commit to a humungous amount of stock upfront in a fast moving market, especially after launch day in Sep/Oct as that is just going to end up in a loss if it has to discount to shift old models just to fulfil its contract.
Costco customers buy produce by the crateload. They are not doing that with electricals. If anything, the price rises have probably led to a few more panic buys than usual. I would be very surprised if any retailer hasn't already burnt through its pre-inflation inventory.
I don’t think your assumption is accurate. I’m at Costco more than I probably should be for my wallet(at least once a week) the amount of people I see walking out with multiple electronics is crazy. Personally try to only buy my electronics there.
Also, Costco is huge and global. It’s entirely possible they went to Apple and said “we will guarantee you $x.xx.” When that contract ran out. They increased pricing.
Also, I think you under estimate the amount of stock clearing business Costco does. Most recently, with the Gen 1 Jura z10. For $3499. 2.5ish weeks before the Gen2 z10 hit the market.
Bug-Creator
macrumors 68000
Our definition of "global" seems to differ, but at 275 billion in revenue and Apple products only being a small part of that it's quite obvious that this tail ain't gonna wag the dog.
Just like amazon won't.
All 3rd party retailers combined might be able to force Apple into some special deals but all thats besides the point.
In the end they buy just as much stock as they think they can sell and the try to sell it at the highest possible overall profits.
Sometimes it might be selling more at lower margins, sometimes fewer at higher one and sometimes it's a firesale on batch of soon to be outdated stuff.
So in short if you were not part of that meeting you can only make uneducated guesses on why that meeting came up with certain results.
The difference is Costco really doesn’t function like most other businesses. They buy the product at the best price they can get, and then add 10-15% to the price and theres your costco price. The membership is their profit center, not the store. The store stock is priced to run the stores. They can and do have massive buying power, and are an extremely powerful entity from a retail sales perspective.