Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I believe it was Apple who pressured Alibaba to prohibit listing of wholesale refurbished electronics. It would've been too unsetting for Apple's images as a luxury brand to let people realize that somebody remarkets truckloads of used ifones from dumpsters every day.

Refurbished iPhones were a killer business:

1. A less than a year old phone with a defect (dumped by end users, Honhai, Apple's QC contractors) was sold for 20 to 30 USD;

2. Re-equiping a phone without charger, driver disk, or retail box did costs less than one dollar;

3. "Out-of-dumpster" phones, cleaned, and sorted by the level of "brokennes" were sold wholesale for around $50-60 USD a kilogramm;

4. "Recovered" ifones (bought out by recyclers from end users) were sold from 50 to 200 USD depending on level of wear;

5. A "full-service" that includes change of all external casing parts to new, non-original ones, reflashing, new battery, resoldered clean ports, new memory chip for phones with failing or degraded NAND flash, and bubble-wrap packaging did cost around 10 to 15 USD for small quantity orders;

6. A phone refitted to market grade A2 (identical to a phone from assembly line with less than 3 non-original parts) can be sold for up to $300 a piece.

> It would've been too unsetting for Apple's images as a luxury brand to let people realize that somebody remarkets truckloads of used ifones from dumpsters every day.

If they were worried about their image in that regard, then maybe they shouldn't have made products that people would throw away after 1 or 2 years.

And when you'll lead your consumer electronics company, you'll be able to make that choice. And hopefully consumers will agree with it.

If I were to lead such a company, and wanted to portray the image that we sell high quality products, I would focus on creating high qaulity products that actually last, and don't need to be replaced every 2 years.

I would not sell my products at exhorbatant prices in the hope that my customers would think expensive = quality. I would not try to control the perceptions of my product by hiding information from my customers.

IMO building shit products and then trying to trick your customers into thinking it isn't shit, is not the best stratergy. I would just try to do the best that I can and let my products/services speak for themselves.

Many companies would not do that because all they care about is their bottom line, even at the risk of pissing off their customers.

I personally do not do business with or recommend any company that I have found to be deciptive about what they are actually offering their customers, because I hate a lack of transparency. I don't want to spend ages wading though a company's bullshit just to figure out if their product actually does what they claim it does. So if I ran my own company I would never do that to any of my customers/clients/users.

https://youtu.be/q8LaT5Iiwo4?t=1m26s

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.

Am I really an entitled, spoilt asshole, because I expect some transparency from companies about their products and services?

Edit: just to be clear, I am not saying that Apple makes shit products, nor am I saying they make good products. But the instant I see a company do some PR shit to make their products seem better than they are, I instantly lose any respect for their products. If your product cannot stand on its own merit, then is it really a good product?

I'm not calling you names and, no, it's just the fact that you're willing to dismiss a magical product because of (respectfully) tiny frustrations. We are living the future our parents dreamed of, but we keep finding things to complain about.

I guess it's these frustrations that move humanity forward, but we shouldn't forget to look back and see how far we've come.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com