The Wholesale Forums

[donaldsodav290]

After doing some much hard research among almost being a victim on numerous accounts of scam artist, I think I finally hit the jackpot. I found an ipod/psp/xbox supplier about 1 and a half hours away from my town Ottawa. I recently placed an order for 2 sample units 1 ipod nano 4GB and 1 ipod mini 6GB both for 139.99US$. He has a formal receipt system, the adress checks out, and I am placing an order of 25 ipods when we meet in montreal. I would like to clear up alot of stuff about ipods.

It is true that they are sold in wholesale lots of 1000's by apple. However what many people fail to realise is that there is what some might call a side market for these ipods. It is known that many models are manufactured in china and labour and material costs are really cheap. I believe that the factory that produces these ipods and other products for apple make surplus or sell extra stock for their own personal benifit. I have also found a gold supplier on alibaba.com that sells ipods, and as far as I can see they check out as legitimate. I know this because I consulted the 3rd party credit report site that they had told me to go to. I really think that most people are puppets of corporate marketing schemes. Looking at the profits apple makes in a quarter with only selling an excess of 400 000 units and making huge sums of money, it must be obvious their profit per unit is massive. Big companies like apple do not make 10-20$ per unit as some may suggest rather they could be making upwards of 60-100$.


Anyhow that is my two cents,

I will supply this thread with pictures and other documentation once I receive the ipods, and then hopefully I can start placing orders in the 100's and be able to take orders from other people.

[Anthony]

Sounds Goods..

Hope it all works out for you..

[guru4us]

Here's how i think it works:
Apple produces all their Ipods in China...from there on, they're taken to two distribution centres.
One of them of course: Hong Kong...the second one, im working to find out but im pretty sure its Singapore. Believe it or not, they also have huge distribution centres in Romania, Ukraine and Turkey

[guru4us]

they wont be making $100 on each unit..but $60 is a more realistic figure

[slkeen]

Hi everyone just found this article:

Unpeeling Apple's Nano
Researcher iSupply took a look inside the latest iPod to find out how much Apple is making off it and who supplies its parts.

Now that the Nano is on the market, attention has turned to more practical questions. Among them: How fat are Apple's margins on it?

Market research firm iSuppli set out to satisfy the curiosity by buying the $199 2-gigabyte version of the Nano and tearing it apart. The verdict? It costs Apple $90.18 in materials to build the unit and $8 to assemble it, leaving a profit margin before marketing and distribution costs of about 50%. That's consistent with the margins on earlier iPod versions and serves as a reminder of what a profit machine the iPod family of products has become for Apple since it was introduced in 2001.

Margins on the computer-maker's other products tend to be slimmer. An iSuppli teardown of the Mac Mini found the cost of material and manufacturing on that computer to be about $283, leaving a gross margin of 44% before marketing and distribution costs.

WINNERS AND LOSERS. "Historically, Steve [Jobs] won't accept anything less than 20% gross margin on any product," says Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin. "In the rare cases when the gross margins have dropped below that, it has been a fluke." Apple has sold some 16 million iPods in the first nine months of fiscal 2005, and 21 million since its inception. Thus far in fiscal 2005, the iPod has brought in $2.6 billion in revenue, accounting for about 25% of Apple's total.

[donaldsodav290]

Great post slkeen, I was reading up on that too recently. It is really quite sad to see margins of profit of that size. I really think that apple is on its way to becoming a monopoly and if it gains this stance, we may see another microsoft on our hands. I would also like to inform everyone that as reported on ABC, apple has invited the media to witness a new product and could very well be the anticipated video ipod everyone has been waiting for. If you ask me apple is totally dominating the mp3 market and with the expected integration of intel cpu's into upcoming computers, we could witness the same domination.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1186380

[guru4us]

hmmm...very weird. now here's the problem
I know of a legit company based in california who supply ipods
Their asking price for 5000 units is $90 and according to slkeen,it costs apple $90.18 in materials itself

one of them is wrong...

[Xile2005]

Originally Posted by guru4us

hmmm...very weird. now here's the problem
I know of a legit company based in california who supply ipods
Their asking price for 5000 units is $90 and according to slkeen,it costs apple $90.18 in materials itself

one of them is wrong...

Are you sure the California supplier is 100% legit? Even for 5000 units $90 is incredibly cheap.

If they really can offer them for $90, a group buy would be a great idea, obviously add a small mark-up for yourself

Would need a fair few buyers though!

[fastboyuk]

I'd be up for that: a group buy.

[guru4us]

im gonna have to do more 'investigation'. i checked out their business and sales permit and the details given match. will give them a call on monday
and im also gonna ask them why they dont take L/C

maybe the price is cheaper because of the over run's that donaldsodav290 talked about in his first post?