I stumbled upon this article the other day about how Core (the distributors of Apple products in South Africa) were unhappy that one of their bigger distributors CAB (Cool Apple Buddy aka the Apple store in Sandton City) was no longer selling Core products and rather brought in the stock themselves. CAB basically felt they were losing business due to the poor delivery time of stock by Core.
I must wholeheartedly agree with CAB, Core is one of the worst companies I’ve ever had to deal with and this is assuming you can ever get hold of them. When I was told to phone them about getting my HSDPA modem working they basically had no recourse for me and told me to bring in the laptop. Sure, I understand it’s hard to diagnose over the phone but that’s just indifference on their part. They could have at least given me some generic steps to try fix it. Core knows they are the only distributors and frankly don’t really care about customer service. Why should they, you have to buy from them either way.
Whining about the Core situation aside, I think it’s rubbish that they should have to be the only company bringing in Apple products and if CAB wants to get the products from a different source then good for them. The problem is however that whether you walk into a CAB store or a Core store you’ll pay the same price for your Mac products. One would hope that CAB could lower their prices somewhat considering if they are importing the products themselves there should be some cost savings.
It seems that despite the distributor South African consumers are going to get shafted with regards to price. So ultimately let Core and CAB fight it out, once one company wins we’ll just get to pay more than we currently do to get our Apple fix.
Such is the life of a South African Mac lover.
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Pricing for Apple products are regulated by Apple VERY VERY strictly.
This distribution method helps justify the presence of Apple stores and selling their products in other stores. I am not sure about the policy on sales and campaigns though, but I would imagine that it too is monitored and controlled by a single quad core apple desktop machine!
I have no sympathy for Core. I haven’t had to deal with them directly (thank goodness) but from I understand from retailers I deal with, they are shocking in terms of service, delivery times and just about everything they do.
They could do with a bit of a shakeup and CAB is as good a distributor as any to do the shaking.
Well I reckon CAB must be the biggest distributor for Core’s products, thus the fuss.
Frankly this is why I get my Apple products imported, I’d rather not give those money grabbers my money.
Mate, you’re farting against thunder if you hoping CAB will come in at lower prices than Core. The entire Apple retail industry, both Channel and ‘grey”, are a bunch of sharks, CAB Platinum Store included. As for service, both on the floor and after-sales, CAB sucks!
I tend to agree with you Sean, CAB is just as disgusting with regards to price gouging compared to CORE.
It would be nice/would allow them to sell more.
i always thought the shop in Sandton is the official distributor of Apple in South Africa…
I bought a macbook yesterday and after that, we pop into Incredible Connection for DVD-R’s and yet, the Sales person was laughing at us that i must have paid more for my macbook. Initially i did not believe that but after taking out the invoice and comparing —> i did pay almost 12% more for the very same machine!
we then went back to the shop and complaining about the huge difference demanding to return the machine but was told it’s their company policy that we cannot get cash refund and the wording was stated on the slip!! However, we only get the slip after we paid in full and nothing was mentioned before. They also added that they import from US and Incredible imports from UK therefore their costs are higher… bla bla bla.
Later on, i check other shops in SA (like Dions, Sacamera)selling Apple MacBook 13.3” 2.4 Ghz White, they’re all selling @ R12999 including VAT, only CAB is selling R14550!! This is really ripping off!
With the price i paid, i can almost get the Black MacBook! And the way they refuse the refund really made me very upset.
indeed let them fight it out .. but do we have to pay the price with the most horrendous service! I ‘ve had my Mac book air for repair for 4 weeks now and the service at Istore in Sandton was appalling .. i have never seen people so bad .. can’t even get their own job card system working, they make youy wait for hours, never get back to you .. really.. disguting. Now .. what are our recourses as they seem to be the only one dealing with equipment under warranty (they told me!)…
Maybe we can do something about bad after-sales service. Some suggestions are developing at http://www.macgeek.co.za/2008/07/16/repairing-a-macbook-in-south-africa/
Chip in – maybe something will come of this and we can change the way CAB, Core etc do business.