PC Retail

For God sake... how the hell are we suppose to compete with these deals.

I don't think that's the biggest problem. I think the bigger problem is that these sorts of deals are going to make customers scoff at having to pay for laptops at all. "But why is this one �600? I can get it free at Orange/Carphone/Best Buy/PC World!"

I've already had people ask me why they can get laptops for free elsewhere. Difficult to make a sale after that penny has dropped.

If things aren't hard enough then come deals like this, but customers don't see its to sign up for 2 years at a higher rate per month and they are paying for the laptop monthly
with the size of screen fit for an etch a scetch

It really makes me wonder why I have bothered in the past 10 years to help sell these brands, with hardly any help or support from the manufacturers and poor marins , only for them to cut us out. Does this happen in any other industry , i,e, subscribe to some soap power brand for 1 year and get a free washing machine ?

Hehe, maybe if it was delivered to my house so I didn't run out and only realise I was out of washing powder when I'd ran out of clean clothes then I wouldn't mind...

But back to being serious. I would be a fair amount of money that the other operators are only a few months at most behind.

Still, I think the biggest kick in the balls would be if they start offering these deals to their authorised phone resellers but keep us out the loop.

cant wait to see the response when thety bring it in to be fixed and you quote them the normal rate for the job. what its not free but i didnt have to pay for the laptop. what wont orange fixit for free? still if you wait 11 months you can get another one for free? what do you in the mean time? perhaps saw part of your coffe table leg off and us it to make it level again.

Some thing must give in for them to provide a free laptop. I bet when customer signs in and 3 months down the line the Laptop packs in, bring t to me and I fix it for a price.

Saying that, I do wonder if we will see repairs... If a mobile breaks down under contract, it's repaired for free by the operator... If that's the case with these laptops then we could have problems.

I don't see the problem? There are plenty of mobile broadband packages available at �10 per month, and plenty of UMPCs or Laptops at the �200-�250 mark. Get a finance company on board to spread the cost of the laptop over 24 months and you can create your own bundle at similar money (eg �25pm) ?? Then let their marketing open the consumer mind to the idea........There's always the opportunity then to upsell the customer to a better spec laptop / higher priced monthly package.

Hi all,

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Looking forward to any responses.

@ Nik H,

That's definately an interested point. My only concern would be if the mobile networks would be okay with us adding margin to a service such as mobile broadband.

I'll look into it for sure.

Brett,

I wouldn't even bother asking them about creating an actual bundle as I doubt it's in their interest to do so with the current deals they have set up.

Just 'advertise' and 'sell' it as a bundle but do it yourself. I'm sure the customer isn't going to be concerned when they have to sign 2 forms or have 2 direct debits coming out of their account each month (eg �10 + �15).