I still don't get why this practice is unacceptable. The shop doesn't seem to lose anything here.
When you, the fan, get around to buying tickets for the event you find that they're all sold out already (except for the nosebleeds). But you can get tickets on Craigslist for 3x the face value of the ticket from some guy who bought several large blocks for the sole purpose of re-selling them with a huge markup.
Maybe the venue shouldn't care if re-sellers are buying up all the tickets, but it sure makes for a shitty experience for their actual market (i.e. the people showing up for the event). It also limits the venue's ability to control supply and demand because they no longer have any direct say over the market price for their good/service.
So both fans and the venues seem to be worse off, while the middle man makes a big profit by artificially restricting supply.
The guy in the article exhibits the same type of buying behavior that a scalper would: buying more iPads than a normal individual would require and then reselling them at a markup. Apple doesn't have any way to tell that he's trying to extend their market abroad to people that can't purchase an iPad locally. But I'm pretty sure they have the same view toward a middleman that concert venues would. And the local customers trying to get an iPad when supplies are scarce are also going to be frustrated that one individual is making (effectively) block purchases.
One of the cardinal rules of good business is to cut out the middleman. That seems to be what's going on here.
Apple will make more iPads if they sell out. The supply is almost limitless.
But limiting scalpers is basically the same as EULAs and DRM - they're regulating what you can do with the thing you just bought. They're making life harder for normal users, while those who gain money by ignoring the system keep earning money.
But if you sell the tickets assigned to a name in the first place, there is no issue anymore. As long as venue sells "blank" tickets, they basically say they don't care if anyone is reselling them at much higher prices.
Imagine an auction that increased ticket prices until just before the show began. Now stop imagining it and recognize that it's exactly the same as sold out shows plus scalpers.
For extra ethical browny points, the sellers could donate (a fraction of) everything taken in above a certain `fair-price' point to charity.
Just think about it: scalper buys all the tickets and tries to sell it for triple price. Nobody buys it. Concert starts, it is empty and the scalper end up with expired tickets in his hands.
Does that happen? No, because people are willing to pay triple price.
I'm not saying I agree with this practice, that's just the reason this is disallowed.
You're right, but say it like you mean it. They treat your opinion of their company as their property.
That's what having a brand means.
I still have the view though that if someone has the money they should be able to buy it and a lifetime ban is not really ideal.
Also a CNN article I read recently means the limit of 2 isn't stopping the trade in Hong Kong: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/08/ipad.hong.kong.china.sale...
If a retailer is unable or unwilling to enter a market, why should they be able to artificially ban anyone in that market from obtaining their product?
Take this outside of the context of Apple here. If Universal decides to release a DVD in the US, but wait 2 years to release that same DVD in the UK, should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace.
If anything, Apple is losing that revenue because they are 'unable and/or unwilling to enter that market,' not because someone isn't in the store shopping for their iPad. The argument that Apple is losing money over this is like the argument that the media industries make when they claim that every download is a lost sale.
I'm not saying it's right - just that it's not new.
Saying that this guy somehow 'wronged' Apple is like saying that someone who buys DVDs outside of their region code (and uses a region-free dvd player) is somehow 'wronging' the movie studios.
Indeed, they resort to technical means to effectively "ban" people (region codes). IMO the reverse situation should arise that the companies are prevented from imposing artificial segmentation by any means if they wish to retain copyright protection.
This only makes sense if the base product is a loss-leader, and all of the margins come from the upsells. Best Buy may work this way, but I'm pretty sure Apple makes a profit selling even the barest iPad configuration.
If I could get a comparable laptop (obviously by my own preferences) then I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, just so I didn't have to feel like I was part of some Apple fanboy club.
The attitude? not my thing. The people in the stores? not my people. Even the places they locate the stores are not my kinda places.
Unfortunately, they have great products I really enjoy and their service is phenomenal.
If the only message I got was out of stock, I'd probably wait. But upon learning that the price is actually $1100, that triggered a different psychological response, and now I'm looking for something cheaper. Something from a different manufacturer.
So sure, in the short term, they are selling all they can. But in the future, when they have more capacity, they just lost a sale.
I believe Best Buy is what one would call a middle man.
As far as I know, yes, they are. They make money on Apple products purely off of in-store warrantees and accessories. If you consider this, their store product layout starts to make a lot more sense: they have a huge Apple logo, tons of accessories prominently displayed, and then the actual products hidden on a bottom shelf.
A small nit here but it's important to point out that this is Not Quite True. Over the past hundred years we've worked out some rules about what sales policies companies are allowed to have. For example, you can't deny sales based on race, you can't deny sales (wholesale) because a store sells a competitive product also, and so on. It might be that in the global market place these rules need to be revised.