I'm saying that if Apple makes it corporate policy to turn away business simply because someone wants to give them MORE business, that is illogical.
I don't recall anyone mentioning these aspects of the argument against scalpers, but I haven't read every comment on the internet. Here goes anyway.
One very good reason to minimize the amount of scalping from Apple's point of view, especially by the new breed of pushy obnoxious PadGangs, is to maintain control over the buying experience for its non-scalping customer base.
Apple is all about control. Store wise, they have painstakingly designed evey conceivable aspect of how an Apple store looks, smells, and feels. They spend countless time and effort training their employees. They're marketing a buying experience and in-store atmosphere as much as anything else.
They've spared very little expense to create a slice of utopia for everyone who sets foot in an Apple store. It's an investment and it pays for itself in astronomic sales and cult like status among an ever increasing customer base.
Along with massive popularity comes opportunity seeking tail riders. These remora seek to get their slice of the Apple pie. But increasingly, they're disrupting the utopian buying experience. Today's iPad lines are not the happy go lucky friendly lines of 2007-8-9. They're becoming cutthroat. People are frustrated and getting ugly. There's pushing, shoving, line cutting, etc. Scalpers are increasingly threatening the controlled look, smell, and feel of the Apple store experience.
This is not what Apple wants for their precious manicured stores. Sure, they're making fast money, but is that really the end all? Where are the scalpers when the buzz dies down? Where are the giant lines for the iPod Nano? Macbooks? OSX? There are none. For months between iPad/iPhone launches, Apple is left with its REAL customer base, the customer base it's been striving to cultivate with the perfect in-store experience.
But are the REAL customers guaranteed to keep coming back after they brought their daughter to buy an iPad 10 days in a row this Spring and were repeatedly told, "Sorry, we just sold the last one to a shabby homeless looking man who doesn't even know what an iPad is?" Will they even stand in line with their daughter for the next product if they suspect a fight might break out?
What if Apple installed a bar in every store and began serving liquor? Sure, they'd get a big new crowd of fans, but at what cost? What family would come to an Apple store if there were strippers and cigar smoke everywhere? Apple learned long ago that kids are the future of their success. It's no mystery that today's Apple adult was yesterday's Apple kid, thanks to the school programs Apple wisely instituted years ago. Apple has never been about fast money. They're investors.
And what about this fast money they're making on the iPad 2? I submit that there are only so many customers on the planet for an iPad 2 in a 12 month period. They will not sell an infinite amount of iPad 2s before the iPad 3 comes out. And as we're learning, there's only so many they can make. I also submit that the closer an Apple retail store or dealer is to the factory, the more profit Apple makes…shorter shipping distances cost Apple less. Thus, if 500,000 iPads were shipped to the US at considerable expense, but went right back to Asia on airplanes in the hands of scalpers, only to be sold to people who would have bought one directly from Apple when they came out in Asia in a month's time, Apple is losing money on each and every one of them. In a month's time, those 500,000 people won't be buying an iPad directly from Apple. They'll already have one. By selling to scalpers, they're not increasing sales, they're merely shifting some sales from one side of the planet to the other. Americans will get their iPads, Asians will get theirs. Apple sells the same amount all told, but pisses off their core customer base in the process and compromises the hallowed buying experience they've invested so heavily in. Sure, the sales may increase over time as more people get to see and play with an iPad globally, but if it's at the cost of alienating a huge portion of their audience and ruining the buying experience, lowered sales figures could negate the gains.
