Hi Rahim, Thanks for your candid response. I wish you all the best in getting this addressed. I am all for buying Kenya but the markup will make many people prefer to buy it in the States and get a friend to ship. It sounds to me like Apple is shooting itself in the foot. I would imagine the main premise of regional offices is to offer benefits to customers like better prices and support. It mystifies me the rationale for them to have such high prices for their dealers. South Africa is another place where the situation is about to explode. Look at this for details http://ow.ly/fsbJ On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Rahim Kara <rahim@applecentre.co.ke> wrote:
Hi Rad, Sorry about the delayed response, i do get the same concern from a number of people. And i do empathize, i have an issue with the pricing as well, it is unfortunate in this regard that we're tied down to the CEMEA Region where we can only recieve goods from Europe, the discrepancy we find is an addition of the country we import from ( We arent' allowed to import from USA ) and a small profit margin. If you compare pricing with UK Pricing - apple.com/uk/store you will find our difference to be marginal. & in most instances about 5 - 50 USD Cheaper.
I know what you're saying RAD and trust me, i am trying to change things particularly because that 350$ does hinder our business as Apple Resellers but for the while that i am trying to get this discrepancy eradicated, i would still like to say the following.
I know its cheaper to get it via DHL from the US Store, but in sight of that, we did introduce like Clement said the HP system to aid in easing the payment. I know it's not cheaper. We have also been able to introduce Educational discounts, Gov't rebates, NGO Rebates etc ( Terms and conditions apply ). And again, we are working on trying to rid the discrepancy once and for all. For the record, from what we know, so far, we're the cheapest in Africa. S.A who have the biggest Apple chain in Africa is more expensive than us.
Hope this was helpful RAD.
Rahim