French Apple reseller eBizcuss is a little bit annoyed that Apple prefers to stock its own shelves with their products before they pass on products to third party, certified resellers. eBizcuss has filed a lawsuit against Apple.
According to eBizcuss CEO François Prudent:
His 16 locations in France suffered a 30 percent decline in business during the third quarter of 2011 after the supply of iPad 2 and MacBook Air laptops from Apple dried up. In the fourth quarter, his company could not obtain a supply of the iPhone 4s, Prudent said. He traced the product shortage began to November 2009 when the Carousel del Louvre Apple store opened in Paris, the country’s first.
eBizcuss isn’t the first reseller to sue Apple, and they probably won’t be the last. However, this is a pretty obvious danger of selling third party products as a primary business model. We’re not exactly sure how a company selling its own products and directing its supply where needed is anti-competitive, but those are the claims.
One thing is for certain, eBizcuss is about to be a former certified Apple reseller.
There has been a large number of resellers that have struggled to maintain profitability once an Apple Store opens in the neighbourhood. It sucks, but a good business person can see the writing on the wall once an Apple Store opens up shop. People prefer buying products from the source, especially if they feel like they’re getting better service. But, it’s kind of hard to compete with the Apple Store experience as an independent reseller if you can’t line up an appropriate amount of products to sell your customers.
Source: Le Figaro
