NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

In a fairly standard announcement required to NZX, Renaissance today revealed the ever-evolving relationship between themselves and Apple. Most notably, the announcement indicates the ability for some retailers to now be able to "multi source" - meaning that larger companies may be able to source stock from either Renaissance or Apple directly. This is quite common in other countries and begins immediately within New Zealand.

Part of the statement (that you can read in full on the NZX website) reads...

"There are also further changes being introduced to our distribution margin structure and these will be phased in between now and 1 October 2008.

Renaissance has today signed a new contract with Apple reflecting this new structure.

These changes will bring the New Zealand distribution structure for Apple product broadly in line with those prevailing in Australia and other countries.

While the timing and quantum of these changes are not easy to predict, we expect the sales volume and profit achieved by Renaissance from our Apple distribution business will fall. We expect the full impact on the Apple distribution business will be spread over 2008 and 2009. "

On a more positive note, the announcement continues...

"In 2007 we made two acquisitions - MagnumMac and Natcoll. These companies have traded well and we are looking to expand both businesses in 2008.

We opened our first new MagnumMac store in Albany in November 2007 and will continue to open new stores as suitable locations are secured.

We also see prospects for domestic and international growth in our education activities, and regard Natcoll as being key to our aspirations in the sector. "

Comments (13)

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Philip Roy said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

	Renaissance Corporation shares tumble http://www.stuff.co.nz/4379364a13.html
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digitAL said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

	Yay, about time for Apple products to become competitive with other computing hardware. Apple has always been over priced in New Zealand and maybe now we will see some real competition - bring it on. Renaissance has had its own way for too long! Go the little guy!
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Jens Mueller said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

It's probably not that prices here are out of line, they are not much higher than in the US, adjusted for freight and GST, but it is the dedication to the brand and the resulting customer service. If you only have one source of brand product, there is little incentive by that supplier to fight for the sale with superb customer service. Now, there will be more competition between Apple and Renaissance/Magnum Mac for sales, and hopefully this will be good for consumers.

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digitAL said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

Its still cheaper for me to fly to the States and buy retail, a fully blown Mac Pro with all the bells and whistles than it is to get it here. And I get a holiday! Example. MagMac price on 1Gb ram chip for PPC G5 2.5Quad is more than double what everyone else is charging - I know, I have the invoice!!! and they charge $100 to put it in - !@#$%^&*()!!!! Service schmervis! You may be right on that front :-) I cannot understand this weird support for Mac's being reasonably priced here. You only have to look at the big U.S. retailers to get an idea of how competitive the "real" market is. Even PC's are much cheaper overseas by comparison. One can get an idea of margin when you compare U.S. Education prices to retail. Not like the pathetic rate here! Sorry, but my money says Renaissance had been making a killing for a LONG time. As for freight costs etc. As I understand there is no duty on computer equipment and a mate of mine brings in 40ft containers for about $3-4k from Asia. You can get a lot of Macs in to 40ft!! Its the same old story - If Steve Jobs hadn't bailed out of the big chair all those years ago, I bet Apple would be in an even better position than they are now. More bums on seats as it were, is where the best price/competition comes from, and if Renaissance were more aggressive in the early days at being "competitive" then we would all be winning! Except of course those over in the windoze camp!!

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Jens Mueller said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

Hmmm, you never sea freight large quantities of Macs because of the risk that they obsolete your stock with a speed upgrade or some other un-announced hardware changes, so you need to express air freight them at $25/kg... Add the 12.5 GST, broker's fees and transportation within NZ, add the NZ power adaptor, and the cost here is not all that different from the US cost. We do this more than 1,000 times a year, and still can only under-price Apple by about 6-15%. Still, for most users, that is enough to switch. On Mac Pro unit it is different. Those are priced here at an unbelievable mark-up, as are 2Gb RAM modules for laptops and iMacs, and there you can save a bundle by not going to Apple directly. All in all, more choice and competition will be good for the business.

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Philip Roy said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

Yeah, digitAL...if you're going to make an argument about the cost of things in this country, you do kinda have to include costs of things like shipping them here and GST. I know that doesn't come up to the costs you're mentioning, but the whole "I could have a holiday too" thing escapes me....there's a heck of a lot of things I could buy more cheaply overseas whilst ignoring the cost of the air fare. Apple's not alone in that.

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digitAL said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

Im scared now lol :-) I am close to biting the nasty bullet and getting the 8core 3.2GHz beasty. But taking your comment about markup, I am having trouble justifying the "must have now Gene" with wait and see practicality. I kinda need it for speed with video production, but I so hate throwing money down a corporate throat for the best on the block appeal which lasts about a month! Oh the dilemas of technology!

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digitAL said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

Totally agree about the cost of living on an Island way down here in the South Pacific. It's a privilege to be sure, but as everyone keeps harping on about "we live in a global market", I guess some parts are more "global" than others!! As for GST, I'm thinking in a business user sense not end user, so its a bit academic to my position, but still relevant to the end price of things. For me it comes down to the profitability of acquiring tools to complete a job. The margins get very tight and discounting labour is usually how one stays competitive as opposed to earning a fair rate for services rendered. My industry is heavily geared to technology and we have to bite down hard on equipment costs compared to our lucky mates in the U.S. in particular. See for me, flying to the States is a tax deductible venture, so I guess I wasn't being totally fair in my comments - sorry!

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lowededwookie said: January 29, 2008 | url    Votes: +0

This might be the reason for the talks at work with Renaissance. The company I work for has been having ramped up talks with them (we originally had talks with them a couple of years ago but it seemed nothing had happened) and the other day one of the SDMs came up to me asking if I'd be willing to do some Apple Training. I'm actually amazed I was asked such a stupid question. Basically it seems we're pushing for reseller status although it is not to consumers but to corporate customers. Obviously I can't go into too much detail, a). I don't know anything and b). no sense letting the competitors in on what we're doing. That being said if it does happen then it looks like I'll be adding Apple support to my qualifications (which technically means I will only have Apple support as my qualification as I have no formal quals despite doing this for around 10 years). As to digitAL's comment about "global market" how can we be in a global market when we have limited ability to sell in places like America and Europe? There is no free trade agreements with America on account of our anti-nuclear stance and even if there were we wouldn't make much money from them anyhow. Most of our money comes from China and Middle East (which may also impact our free trade status with America). About the only money we make from America is in tourism but we'd probably still make more from Japan on that. Without free trade we can't ever hope to be competitive with American prices and yet we're not that far behind when you factor in things like state taxes in America. To make statements about costs and leaving out some important information such as the fact you can write stuff off as business expenses seems a little bit devious when many of the people here are consumers and don't have these abilities so getting product from America isn't really that cost effective for us. Don't forget buying directly from Apple saves a decent whack as well.

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Philip Roy said: January 29, 2008   Votes: +0

	And buying from Apple VIA a link on this website saves you a whack, helps support my running of the site
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stan said: January 30, 2008   Votes: +0

From a mate who is pretty high up with one of the major retailers, Apple have had a person working in NZ for the last 3mths. The feeling was that they would always end up with a direct relationship with Apple via Apple Australia. My mate tells me that the level of service from Renaissance is pretty crap, they have no idea how retail works. I don't think we are going to see much cheaper macs but maybe see them have a stronger presence in retail store throughout NZ

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Philip Roy said: January 30, 2008   Votes: +0

	Eh? Level of service? They're a distributor...they push boxes out of doors (sorry Renaissance that's putting it crudely) like they always have. Their retail arm is now MagnumMac and that's looked after by the people that did that before Renaissance bought it. We are just really talking about a different channel to get goods from...aren't we?
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Jens Mueller said: January 30, 2008 | url    Votes: +0

It likely will mean that Renaissance no longer controls who gets what and at what price, but Apple Asia will, through Apple Australia. That should increase margins for the stores (and the prior 8% margin was woefully low to maintain a store presence anywhere...) and allow for the appointment of Apple resellers outside the larger cities, so that penetration increases in the non-urban areas as well. We get heaps of first-time Mac clients outside the large towns, and if there were more local sellers, the Apple sales would increase quite a bit in NZ. A sideproduct should be the faster availability of new models, and let's see how quickly Macbook Air boxes will now show up in stores nationwide, after they start shipping from Apple in the US next week.

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