Macbook Pro Aquisition
This post may be a little long since I did muck arround a bit to get my Macbook Pro at best possible price, so if you are just interested in the final method/result, skip to the last paragraph summary.
As I stated in the intro, I decided to get my first Apple Mac and I settled on the Macbook Pro 15.4” 2.4Ghz setup. In Australia, this retails at AUD$3600. I also decided that I refused to pay top dollar for this machine. I never pay full retail price for anything. Where there is a will, there is a way.
The Aus dollar is very strong against the US dollar at the moment so I thought I’d try to get one from the US. The US version retails at US$2500 whic is about AUD$2700 (AUD$900 cheaper!). Now, I have imported computer gear from overseas before and had a lot of trouble getting it through customs without paying all sorts of tax and import duty on it so I wanted to avoid that at all costs.
Another issue I had to deal with was that I needed and Tax Invoice with an Australian Business Number. I need this because I intend to salary sacrifice for the laptop. That means, I can pay for the laptop with my salary before income tax, thus reducing my income and income tax payable.
I sourced the machine I wanted on ebay for AUD$3299 ($300 cheaper than RRP) and the seller would handle the import, would give me a tax invoice with ABN. Not a huge saving but a saving none the less. The seller said I could pay a $100 deposit and then pay the ballance when picking it up in person. Sounds OK. I did “buy it now” and paid the deposit.
The ebay seller emailed me back a day or 2 later telling me that he had refunded my deposit because his supplier could not send him the machine so I was back to square one.
Leopard was to be released in 4 days of this happening. I rang rang my local Nextbyte store to ask them if I could order the Macbook on behalf of my mother (who is a teacher) so I could get a $300 education discount. They said yes and that I could still have a tax invoice in my own name. Great, Macbook Pro for $3300 from an Apple authorised reseller. I was all ready to purchase it when I asked them when I could come in and pick it up. four weeks was his response. No way! I wanted it now. I did a quick ring arround to all Apple resellers in Melbourne and they all had the same problem. None in stock and plenty of backorders. I phone Apple to ask why and they said that their resellers get an allocation of the machines and if they run out they have to wait. The Apple rep told me if I bought direct from Apple, it would ship within 24 hours. Done!
I decided I would buy through the Apple online store and try my luck with the educational discount. Also, a very interesting site is MoneyBackCo. This company gives you cash back on purchases from a massive number of online stores. For Apple they give you 3% cash back (GST portion is not included). The only catch is you must pay them $10 from your 1st cashback. It is legit and works well. Check the site for more info.
So I ended up paying $3219.03 for a RRP $3599 machine. I was quite happy with this. The order was placed and I waited for the call from Apple asking me to prove my educational discount eligability but it did not come. The order was placed on October 24th and I received the machine on October 26th with no questions asked!
I turned it on imediatly and was no longer an Apple virgin. Ahhhh. I could now order OSX Leopard for $12.50 using the Apple OSX up-to-date program. This arrived a few days later but since I had ordered it legitamatly, I felt comfortable installing it from a friends copy that arrived the same day as my Macbook Pro. Now I was really up and running.
Summary:
Purchased Apple Macbook Pro 15.4” 2.4Ghz that had RRP of $3599 for the price of $3219.03 via MoneyBackCo to the Australian Online Apple Store and applying the Apple Educational Discount of $300.
