Apple resellers to lose education sales

Apple will remove reseller access to discounted education pricing for teachers and student customers next April, some Apple partners have said.

The vendor has also drawn up a hit-list of resellers who would additionally have their right to sell any products to educational institutions taken away, the resellers said.

It is believed that by the end of November all Apple resellers would be informed whether or not they still had the right to sell into the education market.

Partners were informed of the changes in writing over the past few days, but the changes were first flagged at the vendor’s partner conference in October.

One Apple reseller, who declined to be named, said the writing was on the wall up to 18 months ago.

"In July 2004 Apple formed the view that selling things like iPods and accessories on a student and teacher discount through the retail channel represented such a paperwork trail for a minimal return that it wasn’t worth doing," the source alleged.

"But it continued to offer the discounts online for its direct business.

"That same regime is due to apply to high-value products like Macs as well which, hypocritically, Apple is also going to continue offering discounts for online."

Next Byte director, Tim Kleemann, who was still waiting to hear whether his company would remain on the institutional dealer list, was philosophical about the changes.

"It’s not the end of the world," he said. "Many students and teachers will still want to see the products first and get training. Resellers will still have the ability to offer their own discount pricing and support."

Kleemann estimated that education discounting for individuals was involved in around half of all Next Byte's low-end, and 15 per cent of all high-end Mac sales.

AppleCentre Moonee Ponds, director, Justin Lewis, whose company has retained its right to sell to education, said any future student and teacher losses were likely to be made up by the natural growth of the market.

"There’s no point kicking and screaming," he said. "Whenever Apple throws a hand grenade into your show-room you just have to learn how to duck and cover, then figure out the best way to keep your customer."

Maccentric director, Henrik Kocharians, said the reseller had been working for some time to steer education buyers into becoming retail customers by providing extended after-sales service.

"I recall when Apple no longer offered education pricing for iPods and contrary to many beliefs, Maccentric is now well on its way to breaking the quarterly iPod sales record for a single AppleCentre/reseller location," he said.

"But I know there are resellers whose viability may be based on educational sales and I can only assume they will be hit very hard unless they remodel their business."

Apple Computer Australia declined to comment about the changes to its policies.

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