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Apple Your Rights Online

Amazon Is Kicking All Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers Off the Site (vice.com) 271

In a new agreement between tech giants Amazon and Apple, shoppers will soon see a selection of the latest Apple products on Amazon.com. This is not good news for everyone. Motherboard: John Bumstead is a computer refurbisher who, every year, saves thousands of laptops from the shredder. He buys MacBooks en masse from electronics recyclers, fixes them, then sells them on Amazon Marketplace or wholesales them to vendors who do the same. Friday morning, Bumstead got an email from Amazon informing him that he'd no longer be allowed to sell Apple computers on the platform, thanks to a new agreement between Apple and Amazon that will only allow "authorized resellers" to sell Apple products.

"As part of a new agreement with Apple, we are working with a select group of authorized resellers to offer an expanded selection of Apple and Beats products, including new releases, in Amazon's stores," the email says. "You are receiving this message because you are currently selling, or have previously sold, Apple or Beats products. Your existing offers for those products will soon be removed from Amazon's online store in the United States. Please contact Apple if you would like to apply to become an authorized reseller on Amazon." As the email notes, this is part of a new agreement between two of the largest companies in the world that will allow Amazon to sell new Apple products around the world; in exchange, Amazon agreed to let Apple pick-and-choose who is allowed to sell Apple products on the site.

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Amazon Is Kicking All Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers Off the Site

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  • Hate monopolies (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:21PM (#57618834) Homepage

    This is why we hate monopolies.

    In the internet sales business, Amazon has effectively become a monopoly.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      No.

      monopoly
      /mnäplE
      noun
      the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

    • by alexo ( 9335 )

      This is why we hate monopolies.

      In the internet sales business, Amazon has effectively become a monopoly.

      *cough* AliExpress *cough*

    • by llamalad ( 12917 )

      I'm actually happy to see this.

      I was shopping for an iphone 6s a few months back and it was basically impossible to find a used one that I could be certain wasn't a half-assed refurb.

      Ended up getting one from what looked like a reliable seller and it was bizarre. It weighed less than a supposedly identical model that I'd purchased new some years ago, the screen was decidedly yellow, and the touch interface was somewhere between laggy and nonresponsive.

      Over th eyears I've bought a number of refurbished appl

    • Hardly. I can go on overstock or ebay or any number of other places - even direct from Apple if I'm not mistaken - if I want a Macbook. That's not even close to a monopoly. And that guy can setup his own website if he wants and do it direct.

      If there's a monopoly in this story, it's Apple's monopoly on systems running OS X.

  • we see a lot of stories about how Amazon really doesn't care about people selling actual counterfeit goods on their platform.
    • Very true. Amazon is full of fraudulent aftermarket car performance chips, for example.
    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      They have launched this type of program with other brands (Nike, I believe, is one of them). They limit it to specific brands though.
    • Amazon was given a choice of having "unauthorized refrurbishers" or "first party Apple products". Not a hard choice. They still don't care, but Apple does and can throw it's weight around.

      • This would seem to be a clear case of tortious interference.

        Apple is using their economic value to pressure Amazon into dropping third party sellers, thereby interfering in the business relationship between Amazon and the third party sellers, and causing measurable economic harm to the third party sellers by depriving them of the sales they would otherwise be expected to make via Amazon's platform.

        Tortious interference, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's business relationships with a third party causing economic harm.

    • we see a lot of stories about how Amazon really doesn't care about people selling actual counterfeit goods on their platform.

      Since this story is about Amazon and Apple... At one time, Apple reportedly purchased 100 "original Apple" chargers from Amazon. Out of 100, NOT ONE "original Apple" charger was an original Apple charger, and 80 out of 100 were dangerous (according to Apple, who took them apart).

  • by Freshly Exhumed ( 105597 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:30PM (#57618898) Homepage

    So, who amongst geeks or hardware hackers needs Amazon or official Apple Macbooks? Refurbished Macbooks are aplenty on ebay, as always. Similarly, macos Mojave works on cheap linux-using laptops in vmware with some tweaking.

    • by jythie ( 914043 )
      It does not matter to the seeker, it matters a great deal to the seller. For people trying to sell hardware, this represents a significant barrier to being found and purchased from. Which will also impact consumers since it will reduce competition in the resale space, meaning fewer options and those options will need to raise prices in order to keep things going.
      • Except for all other online sales venues, such as Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, etc.

      • It may be that very very few people choose Apple products, restrict their purchases to the single largest online Brandybrand(TM) store... and also are in the market for third party refurbished products.

        I'm sure there is such a mouse, and I'm sure he's stirring ferociously, but it isn't going to be a typical sort of combination of purchasing habits.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Tomorrow:

      "You are receiving this message because you are currently selling, or have previously sold, Apple or Beats products. Your existing auctions for those products will soon be removed from eBay in the United States. Please contact Apple if you would like to apply to become an authorized reseller on eBay."

      • Well, except that eBay isn't trying to list new product direct from Apple, which is the crowbar that Apple used here. Want to sell shit direct from Apple, you have to abide by their draconian terms.

        eBay isn't interested, they'll let other people with Apple product list and be perfectly happy to take their taste of the final sale price.

    • So, who amongst geeks or hardware hackers

      Geeks and Hardware hackers aren't the issue. Not from our ability to find stuff, nor from having any bearing at all on the discussion at hand given the ultimate size of our market.

  • by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:37PM (#57618952) Homepage

    Allowing others to sell used/refurbished hardware is certainly less profitable than being allowed to sell new stuff yourself.

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:40PM (#57618970)
    Apple reigns in the renegades.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Good. The more pain Apdows and Winple inflict on customers, the better for alternatives.

      I never bothered with Apple products because I resent their business model. I tolerate Windows to run AutoCAD etc but those installs live in VMs. Eventually that won't be necessary as Wine, Crossover etc catch up.

  • Collusion... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:45PM (#57618992)
    Time for some trust-busting, Sherman Act style. Where's Theodore Roosevelt when we need him?
    • Re:Collusion... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @03:57PM (#57619082)

      nonsense, there are plenty of places that guy can peddle refurbished apple gear, three big auction sites come to mind and others like him are there.

      non-news, so Amazon wants to be sure to sell supported products, that's fine

      • >non-news, so Amazon wants to be sure to sell supported products, that's fine

        Bollocks. I just bought a CNC machine on Amazon where the seller explicitly offered and explained how to download a cracked software application to drive it. Amazon don't give a shit unless there is another big business love-in.

  • Getting a terrific lightly used MacBook Pro which is highly usable for 1/3rd the price of new is easy.

    Apple & Amazon's decision is just going to put more items on eBay and result in EVEN BETTER pricing.

  • I'm quite pleased to see this. Apple playing games is only going to hurt them in the long run.

    So I'm very happy to see Apple tightening the screws on their gear, making it harder to get your hands on their garbage. Feed them all to the shredder, I say.

    Keep it up Apple, continue to be unfriendly to your customers, ratchet it up, keep pissing people off. It makes me delighted.

  • How hard is it to do an ecommerce site today? What, does it take minutes to set up? And, is it really worth giving Amazon 30% of gross? Set up a website, and ignore Amazon. We do that, and we do just fine.
  • I usually don't buy that type of thing from amazon anyway.

  • right to repair issue!

  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @04:37PM (#57619356) Journal

    I saw this kind of thing coming for years, on their platform. A long time ago, I used to do a lot of selling via the original "Amazon Auctions" service. It was more or less a direct eBay competitor, where any individual or business could start listing whatever used or new products they wanted to sell, with auction bidding.

    Then, that disappeared and all of us were herded to Amazon Marketplace instead -- a service that demanded you list your items for sale at fixed prices, but did help you determine the optimal sale price at least. (It would tell you if identical products were currently listed by other sellers, and if your price was below all of theirs or not. If you were willing to sell at the lowest price on the site, they'd promote your listing to people as such.)

    Then, I kept seeing Amazon revising the Marketplace, catering more and more towards big businesses and large volume sellers. You started having to create listings in kind of an inventory grid, that looked totally out of place for an individual selling a few items at a time as a side gig to make some extra cash.....

    Finally, they added so many rules and restrictions on sellers, it became unreasonable for the "little guy" to even bother with it. (Essentially, you got kicked off Amazon as a seller if you didn't agree to give any buyer a full refund for just about ANY reason. They could buy your product, switch it out with a defective/worn out and dirty version of the same one, and ship it back for a full refund claiming "Product was not as advertised." They could claim your perfectly good product was non-functional and get irate with you as soon as you tried to email them back to help them troubleshoot it. Again, you had to give them the refund and eat your original shipping costs to mail it to them. And if this nonsense went on a few times within a couple month period? Your percentage of satisfaction dropped to below their acceptable levels, even if you happily handed out all those refunds and lost money trying to sell your stuff. And you'd risk suspension for not keeping up your metrics.)

    Since then, they've been pedaling Chinese counterfeit versions of everything from shoes to iPhone chargers -- and only apologizing when someone like Apple catches them in the act, red-handed. Then, Amazon claims "We fixed the problem!" as they move on to the next high volume seller who wants to give it a try. So of COURSE they're gonna cater to Apple on this one. They don't want to get branded the bad guy....

  • This sounda like restraint of trade. If I can meet Amazon's requirements, and I can show that I am an honest dealer, I should be able to sell on Amazon.
  • by TheFakeTimCook ( 4641057 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @05:57PM (#57619812)

    Hopefully, Apple will continue to push on this, and get Amazon to stop selling all the shabby "Genuine Apple" Chargers that overvolt your laptop, Batteries that last 6 months, Adapters that are barely (or less) compatible (or just plain shoddy), cables that break, etc.

    That has gotten SO bad that I don't recommend anyone looking for those items to look on Amazon. It really is THAT bad.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]

    • Yeah I've been procrastinating on making it to the hardware store for some button cells... could buy them on Amazon but half a chance they'll be dead or counterfeit these days.
  • by rworne ( 538610 ) on Friday November 09, 2018 @06:10PM (#57619880) Homepage

    The cynic in me also thinks that the brisk business of selling Apple or 3rd party replacement parts such as laptop screens as well as batteries and screens for iPhones is also going away, right?

  • Put an easily removable label over the Apple logo and sell them as a Crabapple PC?

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