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Tell HN: Apple prioritising direct sales, resellers months behind

42 points by allie1 ↗ HN
As per https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/r8wnnz/preorder_and_shipping_megathread_macbook_pro_late/

Seems any order outside the standard 14"/16" 16GB RAM is delayed for resellers - some dating back to November! Direct orders from apple.com seem to have gone uninterrupted.

Is apple sacrificing the resellers to maintain its M1Max/RAM stock for Mac Studio/new products?

34 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 74.9 ms ] thread
celeritascelery
I ordered a 32GB MacBook Pro back in November from a reseller. I just received it last month. Though I saved almost $400 compared to ordering it from Apple, I am not sure the extra wait was worth it.
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allie1
Some countries don't have the ability to order from Apple.com at all. In those cases, resellers are the only option.

I've relied on the Apple ecosystem because they haven't given me a reason not to, but now I am in a position where it's really hurting my productivity waiting for close to a quarter of a year. If they had set expectations better or provided better updates, I would have counted on it and found a temporary solution. No updates for months is just unacceptable when I place that much trust in a company.

Even on Apple.com - you can get the same spec faster on Mac Studio earlier than a MBP 16" with the same spec.

mattl
Maybe they’re having a harder time getting the parts that are unique to MBP? Screens, keyboards, trackpads?
ClumsyPilot
They should let the customer know, what if they needs the machine by deadline, they would consider other options
allie1
Looking at apple.com, changing from M1 Max to Pro shortens the estimate by about 20 days (16 inch mbp with a M1 Pro), earliest delivery if ordered today is April 4th for M1 Pro, April 25th for Max.

The Studio one (with a M1 Max) is available March 24-March 31. Same RAM and hard drive.

mattl
Studio was announced yesterday. Presumably they have a first batch of both models ready to go on day 1.

When they launched the M1 Mac mini on day one I was able to walk into an Apple store and pick one up but only the base model.

cj
We recently hired a couple new employees and I ordered them the base model macbook pros last month, no custom configuration.

Shipping time ordering direct from Apple was over a month out.

I've seen this happen a couple times before, and it's always right after a new MBP model launches.

(Complete guess) but I imagine Apple may prefer to fulfill its direct orders before filling orders from resellers or perhaps they allocate a certain number of units to resellers (when supply is restricted).

allie1
No reports of late orders directly from apple as far as I am aware of. A lot of the reseller orders that got delayed were orders placed very close to the launch of the new 14/16" models.
fouc
I suspect Apple has a tendency to underpromise and overdeliver when it comes to their shipping times. All of my orders arrived far sooner than their estimates.
oneplane
Yes, but it has always been that way. Last time I didn't buy at Apple directly and the reseller was as fast as Apple was in 1998.

It also makes total sense from a face-value calculation: order at Apple, get your thing fast, order at somewhere else and 'they' will not be as good as Apple. Apple wins, reseller looks bad. This is obviously not Apple-specific, nearly any direct+reseller channel combo has the same thing, it's mostly consignment channels that are less problematic (from an ordering perspective... they are so much more problematic from every other angle).

allie1
I'd understand that if ordering directly was an option. Many countries don't have that option, so what's the point for just making the experience of those customers worse?
solarmist
What countries does Apple.com not ship to/sell in?
allie1
Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Hungary, Romania
oneplane
Probably because again, they don't gain anything from cutting their own direct sales in favour of pretty much anything else. They don't look at a local market of a single country, but mostly at the global market, which is what you have to do at Apple-scale. Sure, their 'home country' gets extra attention because the people that make the corporate choices live there so they will be inherently biased, but that's mostly just resulting in launch priority for products, marketing and locations for physical things like meetings, events, buildings etc.

The production lines, money and most customers are everywhere except the starting country.

troyvit
Same. I worked for a reseller back on 2003 and it was the same. We were at the back of the line for new apple products. It was a constant fight.
LatteLazy
The middle aged startup I'm at (70 employee now, 6 a year ago) are constantly having to juggle MacBooks because we can't get enough and enough of what we want. Half my team are on airs that can't really hack it and waiting for new pros to come in.

16GB RAM versions are particularly hard to get ahold of.

We buy direct from Apple.

I never really saw the point of resellers in countries with established markets (were London based plus some Singapore, Jersey, NYC satellites). Wouldn't Apple obviously prioritize direct sales. Sorry for my ignorance, am I missing some obvious angle?

Symbiote
Have you tried asking the resellers of they have what you want in stock? That's one possible advantage.

Otherwise, they can sometimes be cheaper.

allie1
Absolutely, the stock is just the base models and that won’t work.
samrolken
A little over a month ago, the laptop I wanted (14” MBP, M1 Max, 64GB/2TB) was showing 2+ month ship times on Apple.com but it was in stock at B&H Photo and I picked it up the same day. YMMV.
pc86
That is completely different than what's stated, though. That is "B&H bought this months ago, and Apple happens to be back-ordered on the same (I'm assuming more-or-less standard) configuration."

This is about a custom order from Apple directly vs. a reseller ordering that custom configuration from Apple.

micromacrofoot
> Is apple sacrificing the resellers to maintain its M1Max/RAM stock for Mac Studio/new products?

Why wouldn't they?

allie1
When resellers are the only point of contact, the only way to get Apple hardware in a country, it’s just an overall worse user experience for the consumer.
t-3
If Apple doesn't sell directly in a country, isn't that a pretty good indicator that they don't value that market or the customers in it?
ssijak
I ordered a custom 16inch m1max on the 3rd of November from a reseller in Serbia and it still has not arrived.
MrRiddle
Why not just use KP? You can order custom from them as well.
ssijak
That is what I did, but it is the same for iStyle
ksec
So Custom order outside of Standard config were delayed for Resellers? How is that news?

>Is apple sacrificing the resellers to maintain its M1Max/RAM stock for Mac Studio/new products?

Yes. From a consumer perspective. No, from a line manager and capacity planning perspective.

post_break
We saw this with the first M1 macbook pro. You could only get 16GB ram models from Apple for the longest time.
dymk
Why would one buy from a reseller over buying from Apple directly?
giraffe_lady
Mostly I can think of only the kind of individual personal circumstances that are easily dismissed by the HN crowd. Things like having a large gift card or store credit somewhere, trading in something else, only have cash and there isn't an apple store around, mail delivery too unreliable in your area, etc.
andrei_says_
Bhphoto has a program refunding the tax if you used their credit card. For Apple and photography products that’s a significant amount.
newaccount74
Resellers pay less than direct customers, so as long as Apple is supply constrained and has more orders than they can fulfil it makes sense that they prioritise the more profitable orders.