SA computer hardware imports

Love the justification ... I expect that online stores are going to kick the local IT suppliers in the nuts so hard they will either shrivel up and die, or throw down the gauntlet and compete on price and service.

With the new consumer legislation we can import an Asus graphics card from US and the local agent has to houner the warranty. Cannot Wait !!!!
 
BTW: My above post is based on whats currently happening in the cycling industry. A group of us get together and buy from an international online store for less than half local retail. The result, local suppliers are offering better prices and services - the few that arn't are all seeing their sales drop.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Love the justification ... I expect that online stores are going to kick the local IT suppliers in the nuts so hard they will either shrivel up and die, or throw down the gauntlet and compete on price and service.

With the new consumer legislation we can import an Asus graphics card from US and the local agent has to houner the warranty. Cannot Wait !!!!
Click to expand...

I thought Asus had global warranties? They do on their laptops in any case. Are you referring to components only or complete systems? The reason I ask is because I have my eye on this Lenovo laptop that's US$999 and the only thing putting me off buying it, is the fact that Lenovo will give me the finger if it breaks under warranty and I take it to a local agent.
 
Messugga said:
I thought Asus had global warranties? They do on their laptops in any case. Are you referring to components only or complete systems? The reason I ask is because I have my eye on this Lenovo laptop that's US$999 and the only thing putting me off buying it, is the fact that Lenovo will give me the finger if it breaks under warranty and I take it to a local agent.
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If you treat it right, the likelihood of that laptop breaking under warrantee is probably lower than it falling off your desk and shattering on the floor.

I've never had complicated imported things fail on me - 2x Creative Zen Visions, 2x iPods, 1x Cowon A3, 1x Creative Nomad, 3x laptops, numerous HDDs, 1x SSD, 2x mobile phones, etc. The quality of production these days is very good. If it's not a known defect with the model - eg Seagate 1TB HDDs and it's not a failure out of the box - it will work. Dead on Arrivals are the biggest worry I guess but I've never had that.
 
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Messugga said:
I thought Asus had global warranties? They do on their laptops in any case. Are you referring to components only or complete systems? The reason I ask is because I have my eye on this Lenovo laptop that's US$999 and the only thing putting me off buying it, is the fact that Lenovo will give me the finger if it breaks under warranty and I take it to a local agent.
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Lenovo? Break? You have to REALLY abuse them to break them. My wifees one has "fallen" off the desk quite a few times and it's still trucking. Buy it, you wont regret it. In fact you can fork out a few bucks more and get the global extended warranty on any Lenovo product.
 
Hi, I was talking about components. Laptops are one of the few IT products where you get a global warranty. In my retail days I saw quiet a few upset guys whoes imported graphics cards warranties where not hounered by local suppliers, or the supplier wanted to charge a ridiculous price to resolve the warranty.
 
PeterCH said:
If you treat it right, the likelihood of that laptop breaking under warrantee is probably lower than it falling off your desk and shattering on the floor.
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True that, I watched a Lenovo rep drop his laptop on purpose from chest height while it was on, then he proceeded on with his seminar spiel with that same laptop. Lenovo also sell extra warranty for accidental damage.

cbrunsdonza: dude what part of economies of scale didn't you understand in that article?

A sad fact of this country is that we manufacture hardly any IT equipment ourselves, and why should any Global IT company want to manufacture on our shores with a) zero skills, b) high taxes, and not to mention c) our cr@p internet.
 
Great, I'll look more seriously into it. It really is a fantastic machine for the money! Can you buy the warranty from Lenovo SA? The main thing I'm worried about is a dead on arrival unit. I tend to treat my laptops rather well, so unless the hard drive fails or a capacitor or something dies on the motherboard for some reason, it's unlikely to break otherwise.

Ponder, unfortunately the model I'm looking at is the Y550 Ideapad, which doesn't have IWS (Mostly the Thinkpad models have IWS).
 
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cbrunsdonza said:
BTW: My above post is based on whats currently happening in the cycling industry. A group of us get together and buy from an international online store for less than half local retail. The result, local suppliers are offering better prices and services - the few that arn't are all seeing their sales drop.
Click to expand...

WOW, we've been doing that since like 10 years ago. Welcome to today! I've never ever bought a graphics card or memory locally (for personal use).
 
Regardless of market size I still think it's ridiculous that you can import some of the same products from the UK or the US plus courier charges and import duties cheaper than you can find them at retail and sometimes distributor pricing levels.
 
You need to be careful with the Lenovo laptops from the U.S. webshop. I am not quite sure if it is possible to get global warranty for these "cheap" models.
The models you select from the tabook, can either be extended for global warranty or they already have it.

In regards to failure, I have always had Thinkpads and I had 4 incidents in 5 years. I always purchase the global on site warranty and from my experience it is the best you can buy. Call them, and the next day some guy will show up and fix it. (I had 2 screens, one motherboard and one harddrive replaced).
Obviously the models from the tabook are much more expensive.
I always buy them in Germany and I had open cases there and in Cape Town. The best service I ever had was here in Cape Town where they replaced the harddrive. After the guy replaced the broken drive with a new one, two hours later support called me to ask if they can do anything else for me, like shipping the OS cd's).
I hope the great service stays like this.

Wolfgang
 
Messugga said:
I thought Asus had global warranties? They do on their laptops in any case. Are you referring to components only or complete systems? The reason I ask is because I have my eye on this Lenovo laptop that's US$999 and the only thing putting me off buying it, is the fact that Lenovo will give me the finger if it breaks under warranty and I take it to a local agent.
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It is very tricky to buy from the Lenovo US online shop. It is very cheap when compared to local prices, but you will need a US shipping address (not too difficult through a service like MyUS) and most likely a US Credit Card. We tried from here, using VISA/Mastercard and AmEx - without success.

If you have a way to get laptops from there please let us know :)
 
I've used Crescent-Shop for Japanese stuff and electronics ( http://www.crescent-shop.com/ ) many times before. Masamichi the owner and Megumi are great and can source a variety of products and electronics - they ship only from Online Shops and Yahoo! Japan auctions, not brick and mortar stores. Their rates are very good.
 
I think the arguments they give for higher prices are a load of poop.
Seriouly I can buy the same thing internationally for alot cheaper than I can locally and thats for individual items. Shipping is cheaper on larger orders.
 
j@w said:
WOW, we've been doing that since like 10 years ago. Welcome to today! I've never ever bought a graphics card or memory locally (for personal use).
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Not phased on your sarcasm. The difference between the cycling community and IT is that cycling is more organised in doing these orders.

When I was in IT I use to have a good laugh at the few individuals that would order goods from overseas - if they all bought their imported goods from the store I worked at, it might have boosted sales by 1% pa ... so no dent in anyones pockets.


Unlike cycling where just the Argus online orders was enough to keep over 15 stores comfortably in business for a year!


Until the IT community can start denting the income of local suppliers then please post your wow in lowercase :D and perhaps expand your range of goods purchased to beyond RAM and GPU - last time I built a PC, they where not the only components I used :)
 
Rocket-Boy said:
I think the arguments they give for higher prices are a load of poop.
Seriouly I can buy the same thing internationally for alot cheaper than I can locally and thats for individual items. Shipping is cheaper on larger orders.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we can buy stuff for cheaper overseas even though we're buying from retailers and paying more for shipping due to buying individual items. The SA stores are ordering in bulk from overseas wholesalers with cheaper shipping, are they not? If the SA markup was 20% then I would understand, but 50%+ is extortion.
 
I tend to agree with some of the arguments, but there is justifiable cost, and then there is profiteering

When I compare prices from my local Wholesaler, I see the item they import directly from overseas are very competitive (10-15% Higher than $ price), but the items they need to get from local agents, like laptops, motherboards and monitors, are 30-50% higher. Now I know for a fact that their margin only accounts for less than a 3rd of that price. I suspect its the local agents that are making the big bucks.

The problems start when one local agent gets exclusivity. Look at the price of apple products in SA as an example.
 
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