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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stock Puppy who wrote (70572)	10/30/2007 8:11:42 PM
From: inaflash	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213185

OT The traditional travel agent is now an endangered specicies and even travel sites like Expedia/Travelocity have to compete with the airlines own sites. True - Delta.com provides prices just as good or better than Delta prices from travel sites and also special deals like through conventions. Same is true for many hotels. The travel sites are useful to provide comparison to competitors in each niche, when brand isn't important. Not so OT. As much as there is competition on the brokerage sites, the airlines usually match each others on routes, so much of the time, it doesn't matter which site one winds up at. Of course, a through search of all sites might yield a much better rate, but often at a tradeoff on something (i.e. schedule or advance purchase or restrictions). Apple is able to achieve similar effects with MAP. Used to be that going to the Apple site (or any manufacturer site) would be price foolish as they would charge list price, and everyone would discount, sometimes 10% other times 30% or more. This is so that the manufacturer didn't compete with the resellers. Apple has been able to price their products competitively now so its mainly competing on service with the other seller of the identical goods, and the real competitor are the other MP3 players or computers. Cyber-shot® Digital Camera DSC-W80 $229.99 $249.99Original Price -$20.00Price Drop sonystyle.com Sony Cybershot DSCW80 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and Super Steady Shot (Silver) List Price: $229.99 Price: $199.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details You Save: $30.00 (13%) amazon.com You see some of this disparity in Apple products but generally much less. Sometimes none, or one or two dollars just to differentiate. Occasionally 5% might be decent discount. This is achieved thru a few means. MAP is one factor. Low margins is probably another. Finally, competitively pricing so everyone makes their expected sales number near the MSRP with some price guarantees also helps. It aligns the resellers with Apple's interest rather than competing against them.