RichOakley.co.za

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I even said myself that “the MBP will never be sold in SA for R10000”. But still. While everyone has been holding their breath for the new iPhone and 3.0 OS, I was secretly hoping that I’d finally be able to afford the new 13” Apple Macbook Pro. But I won’t. And neither will many South Africans, come to mention it. And all the blame for that goes to Core.

The Core Group, you see, is the official and exclusive importer and distributor of Apple Computer in South Africa, and has been since the early Eighties. All Apple distribution in South Africa, then, is operated independently of Apple Inc., but rather by Core, including but not limited to iStores, and even the online ZAstore. Any Apple products which are not distributed by Core are so-called ‘grey imports’, being as they were not brought into South Africa by the approved route. Essentially, then, Core receive the products from Apple under their exclusivity agreement, and then set the prices for the South African market. And they’re ripping South African consumers off in a big way.

Maths has never been my biggest strongpoint, but let’s take a few examples of Apple prices as listed by the official Apple online store, and compare them to Core’s prices according to the most recent pricelist I received from them as a registered dealer. According to today’s exchange rate, $1 will cost you 8.04 Rand, but I can only assume that Core allows for some flexibility in the exchange rate (perfectly reasonably so), so I’ll set it at a very liberal R9 = $1 (it’s easier on my mathematical ability, too).

And then the new stuff…

On the new Macbook Pro line we’re talking an average markup of around 25%, remembering that these are:

a)      Assuming a very generous exchange rate

b)      At absolute cost price!!

c)      And, most importantly, that Core is not paying the retail Apple prices.

So this markup profit is in addition to the markup on the wholesale price they pay to Apple Inc.

Essentially, I would not be at all surprised if the real markup was more in the region of 50%, and that’s before it even reaches South African dealers, who then charge their markup, too. For a more realistic idea of what Apple products will set you back in South Africa, head along to ZAstore.

While I understand that Core pays shipping costs and taxes on their imported products, it’s also equally important to remember that it also benefits from economies of scale, in the sense that it is less expensive to import a few thousand products than it is to import two. There is no way that their markup can be justified.

The effect of this goes far beyond a mere ripoff of consumers. It is having a real and negative effect on the Apple brand in South Africa. Not only are people turning away from Apple in favour of competitors’ products, but consumers are turning to so-called ‘grey’ Apple products. So much so that Core themselves started a StopGrey campaign to warn people about the possible consequences of buying Apple products which are not distributed through them.

So what do we do about it? Well you hope that Apple realize what Core is doing to their brand in South Africa, and avoid Core and iStores where you can, and instead buy grey products where you are sure that you’ll have some form of international warranty.

I’ll be doing my little bit by selling Apple products at absolute cost price so that at least the iStores won’t make profit, too.

You can sign our very own Twitition asking Core to explain and justify their product pricing structure here…

In case you haven’t heard, there’s quite a bit of buzz at the moment about the journalistic or otherwise role of bloggers these days. How independent should they be and what rules, if any, should they play by? Paul Jacobson recently addressed the issue in his blog, and I felt I should add my two cents, too.

Essentially, the problem is this: Blogging started a few years ago not as an alternative to traditional journalism, but as something completely different. But, a few years later, things have changed. Quite a bit. Originally, everything that a blogger wrote was treated as opinion, really, and so an obvious and inherent bias was expected and accepted. Now, however, the worlds of journalism and blogging are merging, such that blogs are becoming seen as simply an alternative medium for which ‘traditional’ journalists and journalism can operate through. And so people are beginning to expect objectivity and ‘traditional’ journalistic ethics to apply. I’m not sure this should really be the case…

There are 2 sorts of bloggers; journalists who are simply doing their work online, and those bloggers who are not trying to be journalists at all, but just happen to be talking about much of the same things. The first should, naturally, conform to the ethics that would apply if they were writing for any other medium, as this is essentially how it will be treated by readers. And that’s what’s really important. To force the latter category of bloggers to do the same, however, would be a shame. The idea of blogging encapsulates the notion of an individual writing their opinion on whatever they feel most strongly about; and there’s no way to eliminate bias from that, or reason to want to. It is this strong sense of opinion and interest that drives blogging, and makes some more interesting than others. But where do we draw the line?

I’m not for one second suggesting that this inherent bias should go unmeasured and unchecked. Quite the opposite. It is the task of the reader to determine for themselves whether they want to take what is said as information, opinion, or just plain bias, but this can sometimes be tricky. A recent video post by our favourite goateed friend, Walt Mossberg, drew most of its comment discussion from accusations that a so-called review of the new Palm Pre was really a praise-singing of the new iPhone, by someone who is in Apple’s back pocket. Not only does this bring into question the worth of the Pre’s review, but also his general credibility. That’s not a good place for him to find himself in. But there’s an easy way to avoid situations like this, make readers’ lives much easier, and bring credibility back into blogging.

I think Paul has hit the nail on the head, in fact. The task for bloggers is not to try and eliminate bias. Not only is this a huge challenge, but defeats the entire point of blogging in the first place. The solution is to be completely openly biased, as unusual as that may sound. Instead of trying to pass Apple kiss-assing off as a Pre review, why not simply openly state ‘I have always loved Apple more than Palm. I own everything Apple has ever created. And, yes, they pay me to say that’. This way, when I get to the end of the review, instead of thinking ‘wow, that guy is biased’, I will instead be thinking ‘hmm…he did make some good points about why the iPhone will be better…maybe I should check out another review, though’. There’s nothing wrong with bias; as long as everybody knows about it.

So I’ll be starting my own ‘disclosures’ page, too. Unfortunately nobody is paying me to be biased, though. Yet.