No I’m not talking about the fruit although I do find similarities between the fruit and the people who represent Apple in South Africa. The first thing to note is that Apple products have one authorised distributor in South Africa and they are the Core Group. The same company that distributes the Nintendo products at such a ridiculous mark-up.
However it seems that there are plenty of non-authorised resellers in South Africa, but the Core Group can’t seem to decide who is who. They have a local site addressing the grey product issues and they even provide a form for validating your product serial number, albeit a non-automated process. If you compare the following two pages (page 1 and page 2) you will notice that they don’t agree on who the non-authorised resellers are. I think this is ridiculous, how is the consumer supposed to know which list is correct?
Regardless, I decided I wanted a new 15” MacBook Pro 2.8 Ghz,4GB of RAM and 320GB 7200 RPM drive. Yeah I wanted the fastest processor and hard drive that the Apple store in the US offers. I proceeded to call a few of the local resellers seeing as the local online store called the Za Store provided zero customisation options.
Authorised reseller #1: Questek Broadcast Technology
I started by calling local authorised reseller Questek Broadcast Technology for a quotation on the custom configuration I wanted. After numerous unreturned calls on Wednesday and Thursday, I finally managed to speak to the one person that seems to do quotes. She promised me a quotation on email before the end of Friday. To her credit she did call me later in the day and inform me that her email was down and she’d send it when it was up again. On Tuesday I got an email stating:
I do apologise for the inconvenience, however our systems have not been working.
Please be advised that you will be getting your quote today, I just need to finalise a few prices for you once that has been done you will be getting your quote.
So much for Friday’s excuse about the email being down, she doesn’t even have the pricing on Tuesday. Mind you, I never got the quotation on Tuesday either.
Authorised reseller #2: iStore in Clearwater Mall
I called the iStore in Cresta on Wednesday and was told to email Dimitri and he’d get me a quotation by the end of the day. I’m still waiting.
Authorised reseller #3: Digicape store in The Wedge
A few friends recommended dealing with the company DigiCape. So I called their Johannesburg store on Saturday late afternoon and my details were taken for a quotation on Monday. Once again, no quotation was received.
Non-authorised reseller #1: CAB Platinum Store in Sandton City
On Saturday I visited the slick looking CAB Platinum Store in Sandton City after being advised by friends that they are useless. The first thing I noticed was that all of the standard configurations were priced around R4000 more for the exact same box product. Ridiculous. I approached the so-called Knowledge Bar to find out about a custom configuration and was delegated to a back office woman who proceeded to quote me on a standard configuration machine with an additional 320GB 5400 RPM drive. Hmmm, useful, NOT! After I reiterated my requirements my details were taken down and a quotation was promised on Monday. To date, no quotation has been received.
After much frustration and irritation I realised that in South Africa, if you wish to buy and Apple product, you need to simply accept that the distributor, Core Group, knows what you want and its one of the standard configurations. However a few friends did suggest that I go to the USA and buy one there. My problem with this would be the warranty although I’ve heard that local warranty support has much to be desired.
Determined to get myself a Mac in time for Christmas, I called up Incredible Connection in Sandton City on Sunday afternoon and purchased a new 15” MacBook Pro with 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive.
My advice to anyone considering buying a Mac, go for it, and hopefully the Core Group sorts their reseller channel out so you have a better experience that I did.
Sorry to hear about the issues over in SA, I recently arrived in Aus, went to the Sydney Apple store and within 1 hour they had my Mac customised with what I required.
I was walking out the door with a new wireless HP printer for $150, with a $130 cashback rebate too.
NICE.
To save loads of frustration and get a nice holiday to boot, fly anywhere outside of SA where they have sunny weather and a Apple Store. It’s far more relaxing going through a full body search than trying to get a Apple in SA
🙂
Hi Craig
I am sincerely sorry to hear about your experience whilst dealing with Questek. My name is Justin and I am the General Manager of Questek Broadcast. Please email me your details and I’ll contact you immediately to discuss.
Regards,
Justin
Hi Craig
Justin (MS FORZA 2 launch) nice to see you onboard, how long before you Bootcamped Vista hehe. I’ve also just purchased the exact same model from iStore Menlyn Core group and must say the guys were on the ball, I did not quiz them on customization to be honest but I felt with a good felling. First thing guy told Dawie think his name was, was that I should jot down some questions and come see him after a few days with my Macbook PRO. To be honest it has been a breeze getting to learn OS X and anyone with some basic knowledge of Windows will adjust in little to know time.
Warranties here is where I have a HUGE problem standard fair is the 1 year warranty which is understandable but when you are paying close to R30000 for a laptop a little extra cover beyond the standard one year protection would be nice. Here is one thing I cannot understand if you bought said laptop in the U.S/Europe and added a Apple care plan extra two years Core group must warrant the care plan in South Africa should that laptop break down within allotted period. I have spoken to CORE Group regarding this and frankly have not gotten a satisfactory answer from them, in my view it looks like CORE group just do not have the infrastructure in this Country to handle any sort of Apple Care plan which is standard fair in the regions where Apple products are sold. I’ve also spoken to all the third party resellers not going to mention names but they all seem to treat CORE Group with some level of distain, looks like CORE Group is the only Apple that fell out the basket. Digicape a third party reseller selling so called “grey” products does sell a type of care plan BUT only on hardware bought trough them which is understandable and a step in the right direction but leaves us so called legit customers high and dry.
So as you can see it’s a very strange predicament and with popularity of Mac’s growing on a daily basis in this Country CORE Group will have to look stop looking at Mac products as some kind of fashion statement reserved for elite few that can throw money at the problem at a drop of the hat and start looking at it’s product line as a very worthy opponent to the PC market, be it a Mac running OS X or Windows OS via Bootcamp Vmware or Fusion. I read somewhere that 80% of laptops used at academic level in the US are Mac’s that’s huge here is seems that Mac’s are still for a very….very select few. “It’s the Rand/Dollar” and excuse retailers love to band around to explain the high prices in this Country, it seems Mac’s are still reserved for the elite few that can afford a stigma I’m sure the big wigs at Cupertino would love avoid. Compare Mac’s spec for spec in the US you will notice that they are actually cheaper. One thing I can never understand is that Electronic resellers in this Country seem to think that your average consumer in this Country has not heard of the internet and that 1 year warranties are some sort of holly grail and if you buy products from the likes of eBay or any one of the hundreds of online retailers you going to get burnt, quite frankly if I knew I was going to get the same product for a few grand less including shipping I would take my chances ESPECIALLY in these times.
To close off another thing you will notice is that prices for Apple hardware in this Country as if by some sort of magic all seem to be the same, how can that be ? surely Grey product should be somewhat cheaper than its so called legit counterpart, not so in this Country here it seems you have one bad apple making the other apples rotten to the core, call it price fixing call it greed all I know is that the end user is getting the bad end of the stick.
I’ve complied a lengthy email addressing a few issues with our so called legit distributor and will be sending it off to Apple HQ hopefully I will get some positive news I can share with you.
All the best….
Hi Craig,
Don’t waste your time with the ZA Core, their prices went up last year in ± November 2008 due to the ‘exchange rate’ and they are now ridiculous! If you take any product on the UK or US Apple web and convert it with current exchange rate – that is what our prices were before they went up!
I purchased my Mac Book Pro from my local Mac shop at a very good price and the service I have received from these guys has been outstanding. I have also dealt with the ZA Store and unfortunately it was not a pleasant experience.
I believe that if ZA Core continues with these high prices they will eventually kill the SA market.
Regards
Norman