Looking to buy a business which deals in refurbished Apple products. Please note they are not authorised Apple resellers. However, they provide 1 year warranty with refurbished Apple products.
My only question is, how many people buy refurb Apple products these days, considering things like Klarna, ZipPay & AfterPay are now introduced?
I am not sure how can I do survey on this hence I thought I would ask a question on OzB.
Thanks in advance.
I disagree, because there are plenty of apple products with years of life left that are older than the refurbs Apple offers directly. I am routinely amazed at the prices people pay me for my 3yro iPad on eBay when I upgrade.
If op is looking to buy the existing business, they can consider if the sales have been profitable or not.
Obviously, they aren’t going to get an answer here on what number of people will buy a refurb (I assume 7billion would if the price was 1% of the original RRP, but that isn’t likely a useful answer).
Yeah this. Totally agree Hybroid. The reason I buy Apple products either from Apple directly, or from a first party seller is because I get the warranty with Apple and I just can take it in to the Apple store and they’ll sort it. Or I can send it into them and they’ll sort it.
Additionally OP Apple themselves sell limited products refurbished but because they’re the OEM they put new shells so you’re basically getting a halfway new product with some reused innards that are fine, and the faulty part swapped out. But you also get these products with the 12 months Apple warranty, where again you can take it in to Apple or send it back to them for any repairs/replacement.
So bottom line, if I had the choice between non-Apple refurb for an expensive item such as new MacBook, or an iPhone I’ll either buy brand new or Apple refurbished not seller refurbished.
The main reason being that the cosmetic condition of third party refurbished can not be guaranteed so who knows what you’re getting.
Thanks @Jawanzar for the comment. Just curious to know, would you still go to Apple if you had issue with your device after the warranty has lapsed?
Reason for this question is, I would see most the customers falling into this category for the business. Considering a hypothetical situation, if Apple would charge you $550 for the repair, for the same repair this business would charge $350.
Its not the selling price that you should be worried about, its the buying price.
If you have to set up a store, whats the rent, and overheads. How much marketing is being done to drive customers to you? is there on going Franchise fees. How much franchise experience does the franchisor have?
How exclusive is their experience?. Who does the repair, you or is it sent away?
Is there opportunity for you to use your own experience to make money, ie someone comes in with what they think needs repairing, but it just requires you to reinstall software etc.
Do you have that experience?
Have you ever been in business yourself?
No worries. :)
Um, yes and no. It would depend a lot on the cost of the repair for me, but to use your hypothetical, I would probably still go to Apple depending on the warranty provided by the third-party repairer, and the nature of the fault.
If the quality of the repair, and the techs are Apple certified I’d be more inclined to go for the third party repair but I know the quantity of what I’m getting with Apple and if they stuff it up and I take up the chain with Apple to get some sort of resolution.
I don’t think BNPL has any impact on the refurb market.
If you will buy a refurb, then how you finance it is academic. People don’t use BNPL because it lets then buy the device that they otherwise would not buy, they use it to afford an expense more readily. And if the refurb seller also offers BNPL, then maybe get the next model up…
Ok. Two types of apple sheeps.
One is the rich. They will not buy 3 months old second hand even if the price is half. Just no. Anti second hand. Money is not problem.
Two. The apple wannabe. Cant afford full price but want to be cool. This will pay slight discounts because they think it is lucky to get a discount on apple.
It's amazing your mind still cannot comprehend that some people prefer Apple products and see a value in their premium product proposition. When will you stop being childish about other people's choices and trolling on every Apple post?
How much money do they make and how much you offering to buy the business?
There isn't a fixed answer for how much do they make. It's a franchise business model, so some stores make close to $20k a month and some stores up to $50k.
They are asking around $250k for buying the business.
Don't do this. Get a financial advisor to tell you not to do this. Don't do this.
I agree with Hybroid. Don't do this. Apple are also making it harder and harder for independent repairers to work on and fix their products, serialising parts so they won't work with in other iPhones, moving to the ARM based Macs which will be less repairable and forcing independent shops that want access to parts to sign up to a rather rigours program.
Go watch Louis Rossman to see what he thinks of future prospects for Apple repair;
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w
You really need to have someone who knows how to run the figures do the sums for you - that 20k to 50k isn't what they 'make'.
Asking $250k to 'buy' the business isn't, strictly speaking, true either.
Get an accountant/financial adviser who understands business (especially franchise style business) to go over these claims that the franchiser is quoting to see if there is any measure of truth in them.
For $250k there are more and better opportunities than this sort of business - especially better if not using the franchise method.
You aren't buying the business, you are paying to have a franchise and licencing from the parent corporation.
I'm assuming that 20k-50k is revenue, not profit, so at 20k a month you'll take several years to just make back your initial investment.
This is not a good idea. this is a bad idea. do not do this.
Don't forget that the 20k-50k isn't just going to be revenue, you'll need to pay ongoing licencing fees for the franchise and all the rest of it.
I wouldn't even buy new Apple products. When you can see through their genius feel good, elitist marketing BS, it is just a plain and simple rip off.
Each to their own. I find Windows and Android to be always wanting my attention, while a Mac and iPhone are just chill and work when I want them to, if I can anthropomorphise computer technology.
I wouldn't buy used Apple unless it carried a substantial discount. So I guess I would buy used.
I think your issue will be getting stock. Where are you gonna buy the products cheap enough to still sell with a profit?
A lot of large Telcos are getting into the refurbished market, and I don’t think you’d be able to compete with them. I wouldn’t do it, maybe look into an Internet cafe (joking, it was a reference to a thread on here a while ago)
I have bought a refurb Apple laptop before but only because I needed a cheap one to do a uni course in iOS Development. The laptop ended up dying about about a year later but that may have been my fault for the way I was using it… I think if I was going to buy another Apple laptop I'd buy new… with the M1 chips it doesn't make sense to buy an older one now even if they are only a couple of hundred $.
Purchased a refub iphone once it was the worst phone thing i ever did, ill never do it again - had the last owners msgs on it, battery needed to be replace and was a Japanese model (grey import), after about 9 months the phone started to have software issues
It came with a 3 month warranty so they did pay for the replacement battery but the hassle of booking it and taking it in made it worth never doing again. - keep in mind you have to prove the battery is fried which wasnt hard but when you say something is refurbished you expected it to be like new with a bit of wear and tear.
It honestly wasnt even that cheap compared to the phone new
Refurb discounts aren't really large enough to warrant it in most cases. If you're paying a premium for Apple products, you'll want the service and support they offer, instead of chancing it with a third party. Consider another business opportunity.