Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
Does Apple have price control on what retailers can sell their products for?
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I'm not sure. Apple does have an Amazon Store page on Amazon's website, but no clue if they have much say over prices. I assume Apple does have at least some say.
I remember in the early 1990s a computer retail store chain, possibly CompUSA (?), started offering big discounts on Apple products and Steve Jobs got so mad at them that he banned the chain from selling any Apple products for several years. This was Jobs version 1 before he was forced out of Apple. He wanted every retailer to sell Apple products for the same exact prices. CompUSA tried to skirt around this rule by offering a free Apple printer (made by Canon) with the purchase of a Mac. I'm not sure what his issue with that was, as that is a common retail practice in order to be competitive. Seems like Jobs would be happy as long as he got the wholesale prices he demanded, but he was such a control freak! Of course that was way back before Apple had their own retail stores.
I also remember Jobs, (Jobs version 2 after he returned to Apple), made Best Buy (?) dedicate a corner of their stores to Apple, and he had a lot of control over that prices and how the products were stored. I think Apple actually provided the sales staff for their corner in the store.