What, if any, advantage is there buying from Apple on line vs. an Apple Store?

You don’t have to show a college ID online if you want the educational discount. That’s the only difference I’ve seen.

cool!, thanks a lot! Dude or dudette you are fast. I appreciate it!

Man, you got it. Anytime. Of course you might have to use that cost of offset some shipping costs unless they are running a deal. You might also watch out for specials they run. When I got my imac, I got a FREE 30 gig video ipod. Pretty neat stuff. I was stoked.

That could be an advantage of talking to someone at the apple store though. You could run by there and see if they are about to release anything new (it probably would be announced at the keynote speech but sometimes they silently upgrade their imacs and laptops) or if they are about to start any specials. From what I’ve seen, I don’t think mac does any online-only specials.

Well anyways. Good luck.

Very cool! I forgot about specials. I did that for my computer and got a free printer and version of parallels.

cool! And I am always ready to go to the apple store!

I work at a premium reseller, and it seems like the reasons people go shop at us is on ore more of the following
1. They get live support, help and tips
2. They can pay and get their product right away
3. They think it’s interresting to look at the products in the store and try the macs and ipods and such.

For internett shopping i’d say it’s all about getting it delivered to your house.

Well put wilhel1812.

I am a fan of immediate gratification and I have not found any deals to combat that right now so it’s shopping time!

You can get stuff personalized online (esp. iPods) for free! Totally cool.

If you’re buying a computer, you can customize it online. If you’re buying an iPod, as someone said, you can get it engraved online. You don’t have to worry about inventory. My local Apple store is often sold out of some things, especially if they’ve just been released. You can do comparative research yourself, instead of depending on the knowledge of an Apple store employee. They usually know their stuff, but I’ve gotten some incorrect information a couple times. There are some drawbacks to buying online as well- it’s really a matter of what you’re getting and what you need.

Thanks all for your help!! Very good points. It seems, in some cases, there are arguments for each depending on what you buy.

thanks again!!!

There isn’t a huge reason to buy online or in the store when you’re buying a product like an Airport Extreme. The prices will be the same on the Apple Online Store and your local Apple Store. Promotions and special offers will also generally always be the same. The biggest difference would be if you want it delivered to your house or if you want to go pick it up immediately.

You can get education and military discounts both online and at the retail store.

If you are buying a computer the benefit of buying online would be that you can customize the computer (change the specs of the hard drive, processor, graphics card, etc). In the stores you can only purchase a stock model and upgrade the RAM. Note that if you customize the computer online you can’t return it after you purchase it, so be aware of that.

On the online store you can also order refurbished computers and iPods and other products, which are usually quite a bit cheaper than a brand new model. They have the same warranty as a brand new one and work just as well. I almost always get my Macs refurbished, personally. Save a few hundred bucks (especially on older models) and they are the same thing.

In the retail stores however they usually have a “Fire Sale” once a month where they sell all of the items that have been returned to the store because the buyer didn’t want them. Sometimes you can find amazing deals on those types of things. Ask an employee when they do their fire sales and see when the next one is.

Yea the only point that I was making earlier is that when you buy online, no one checks to see if you’re actually going to the school you say you go to.

Yes, that’s true. They also don’t check to see if you are a military member or government employee if you order through the online federal discount store.