Why, just why in the world would anyone pay over retail price for an iPhone? Seriously. I decided to check out the eBay listings for the iPhone, and there are tons of them listed for sale, in lots from one to eight phones.
I also decided to check the Apple website, to check on availability of iPhones at the various Apple Stores across the nation. There were only a handful of stores nationwide that didn’t have them. All together, I counted 24 stores nationwide that were currently sold out. Of that number 18 were in California. The rest were in Las Vegas, Miami, Atlantic City, and Austin, Plano, and Southlake, Texas. Of those stores that were sold out, there were available phones in separate LA, Miami, and Austin stores.
So why, I ask you, would anyone in their right mind pay between $800.00-$5,000.00 each, when they could get them for $499/$599? Some folks clearly don’t get this whole supply/demand thing. Guess they thought it was another Playstation 3 or something.
Weird.
UPDATE Apparently the Knoxville Apple Store (or someone claiming to be the Knoxville Apple Store) is putting all of the “scalpers-to-be” in their place on Knoxville Craigslist.
Heh.
UPDATE by David K.
Then there is this nut-job who is hoping someone will opt for his $30,000-$50,000 auction for an iPhone including personally delivering it to your door within 16 hours of the auction ending. Um. Yeah. Anyone think that paying 50x the cost of it is worth getting one within 16 hours when there are still Apple Stores with them in stock and people selling it for overnight service to you for under $1000 if you really want to have it? Yeah me neither.
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Categories: iPhone
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July 1st, 2007 at 12:38:28 am
Note that Southlake and Plano are suburbs of Dallas, so those sellouts are of little importance with all the other Apple stores in the area.
My local craigslist is overrun with the same kind of profiteers who think they deserve $100/hr to stand in line. It was the same with the PS3 and still is the same with the Wii.
Scalpers suck, as do 90% of the sellers on ebay/craigslist. It was a real pleasure to see the PS3 prices tank and listings near-vanish within a week. Hope the same will happen with this one. Bunch of cockroaches.
July 1st, 2007 at 12:51:54 am
At least the PS3 was in some measure driven by scarcity of the device at the outset. Sony so much as told everyone that they didn’t have anywhere close to enough ready for an initial release of the product.
I’m sure that California is probably similar to the Texas situation, where all of the “SanLaMarDel” suburbs are in the metropolitan area. I just didn’t really want to do a geography lesson.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with the attempts by others to profit on their time and energy to wait on line to get the iPhone. It would make some sense if they were in THAT short of a supply. Here, it’s just stupid.
July 1st, 2007 at 3:59:10 am
haha I feel like some ambitious eBay sellers are upset at your post IT.
I almost went out to try and get one today.
July 1st, 2007 at 9:14:00 am
Just come to NYC where the usual hawkers are standing outside of the Cell Phone stores begging people to come inside and buy their iPhones.
July 1st, 2007 at 11:20:15 am
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July 1st, 2007 at 11:49:51 am
Now that is what you call a dumb spammer. What is this trend lately, of spammers too dumb to list any website or contact info?