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Article seems a bit unclear. Are they blocking third-parties from selling used Apple products? There are a ton of independent people (including just random in
by Kadin 8y ago
Article seems a bit unclear. Are they blocking third-parties from selling used Apple products? There are a ton of independent people (including just random individuals) selling used machines.
It keeps referring to refurbished machines, which is a fairly big distinction, at least on the Amazon platform.
Refurbished machines are sold as primary items; they have an ASIN and are assumed to be basically fungible goods as long as the specs are the same.
Used machines are the ones you find through the "Available from these sellers" subpage on an item (which will often be out of stock, once the machine isn't being sold as new). There you have to list the condition, and many are shipped directly from seller to buyer without going through Amazon at all.
I am wondering if what Amazon is doing is saying that, unless you are Apple, you cannot call a machine "refurbished", only "used". That seems... aggressive, but not completely out of line. It seems like it's letting Apple take ownership of the term "refurbished", when they should really differentiate themselves by saying "Factory Refurbished" or "Apple Refurbished" or something, but it wouldn't necessarily block resale of the units completely.
If Amazon is actually prohibiting all resale, even as "used", they are going to be making a huge giveaway to eBay and Swappa, since that is where the secondary market will likely go. The demand for used Macs isn't going to disappear, and Apple's recent trend towards higher prices is going to increase it.
- baybal2 8y agoBelieve me or not, it is said that at around Iphone 3 era, Apple paid of huge sums of money to refurbishers in Malaysia to simply close the shop. During production of iPhone 4, they started production with plain optical binding gel, but switched to very hard, solvent resistant epoxy mid way. Again, to frustrate refurbishers. Then, they literally paid off Alibaba to push refurbishers out from their platforms. There is a strong evidence for that: there was a press release once of "Apple entering strategic partnership with Alibaba" without any specifics, and the sane week, the kicked out all refurbishers. I bet, they did the same with Amazon
- megaremote 8y ago> Believe me or not, it is said that at around Iphone 3 era What is there to believe? That you heard something? I believe that you heard it. The fact you think that makes it true is worrying.
- baybal2 8y ago10 years ago, when I was an exchange student in Singapore, I worked in a company that was running a trading business specialising in refurbished and low cost consumer electronics. Very early on, we were exporting refurbished Sony phones from Malaysian refurbishers, and later on we tried to switch to first smartphones. In late 2009, I left Singapore, and never heard of how it ended up.
- CodeWriter23 8y ago> will now only allow "authorized resellers" Sounds pretty clear to me.
- kwikiel 8y agoSecondary market is creating downward pressure on prices - Apple cannot sell iPhone XR for $999 when one can get used iPhone X for less. Assuming that Apple products would be used for a long time - it's hard for them to sell more new devices when supply of old ones that are 100% functional is increasing and increasing. For regular internet browsing use CPU from 2012+ isn't that much different from new one