Why IS IT...

We offer OEM and after market accessories to our customers, and we sell them for the same prices. Our cost on the OEM products are usually $2 more, but we sell them for the same as the after market.

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Dave wrote:
>
>
>>> . . . that sell at a 100% profit margin on ebay for $.99, and the
>>> non-oem
>>> ones for a penny!!! -Dave
>> \
>> Yeah, with $6-7 shipping.
>>
>
> People like to complain about the high shipping charges on ebay, but then
> they conveniently forget that sellers need to buy shipping supplies, also.
> So the item you paid $7 shipping for only cost the seller three or four
> bucks to send ... but it came in a box also, didn't it?

<snip>

Many sellers are substituting high shipping charges for higher prices on
the actual items. I.e., I recently ordered some Motorola leather cases
for our V60 phones. I bought eight of them at $1 each, and the total
cost, including shipping, was around $32. So this was $24 shipping, but
of course it was clear that the shipping cost was making up for the
price of the item.

I didn't realize, until someone mentioned it here, the advantage to the
seller of having a low selling price and high shipping charges, as it
relates to eBay fees.

Dave wrote:
>
>> Of course the carriers that would object to the trial idea would also
>> likely be the ones with the lousy coverage.
>>
>> Personally, if I were a carrier that was confident in my coverage, I'd
>> have phones from all the competitors to lend out as well, simultaneously.
>
> That's another great idea! Of course, I can just imagine the lawsuits . .
> . -Dave

There are some independent stores that cell service from all the major
carriers. What a great marketing story they could have: "Come to our
store, leave a deposit, and take home phones on all four networks to
test. Choose the one that works best for you."

Originally Posted by SMS

Dave wrote:
>
>> Of course the carriers that would object to the trial idea would also
>> likely be the ones with the lousy coverage.
>>
>> Personally, if I were a carrier that was confident in my coverage, I'd
>> have phones from all the competitors to lend out as well, simultaneously.
>
> That's another great idea! Of course, I can just imagine the lawsuits . .
> . -Dave

There are some independent stores that cell service from all the major
carriers. What a great marketing story they could have: "Come to our
store, leave a deposit, and take home phones on all four networks to
test. Choose the one that works best for you."

I don't know about other carriers, but Cingular is cutting back on non-exclusive agents - agents that sell more then one carrier. In the upstate NY market, I don't believe we have any anymore.

Mike T. wrote:
>>> Yeah, I don't know why anyone would buy cellular accessories from some of
>>> the retail locations for the cellular providers. -Dave
>> There's another issue as well, the carriers are usually selling
>> after-market chargers, not OEM. In many cases, especially for car
>> chargers, the after-market ones are much lower quality.
>
> Are you saying that you get lower quality buying at an official retail
> location for your cellular provider? -Dave

Yes. In fact I once bought the bundle that Verizon offered, case, car
charger, and headset. The quality was abysmal. I sent it all back (I had
ordered on-line). At least in the case of Motorola, the genuine OEM
accessories are much better quality (at least the leather cases and car
chargers, don't know about the headsets).

SMS wrote:
> TabooLexicon wrote:
>> First of all, the premise that even the low-end phones cost providers
>> virtually nothing is a farse.
>
> "Virtually nothing" is an exaggeration. The low end phones still cost
> the carrier around $40. This will fall to around $25 in 2006, and $15 in
> 2007.

When Verizon calls Motorola and says, "Gimme 10,000 of the T300p,"
Motorola is going to say something like "That's $10.76 in Q10K."

--
If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

"CharlesH" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Dave wrote:
>>>Dave wrote:
>>>>Again, you should NEVER buy a car from a dealer that insists on having
>>>>someone accompany you on a test drive. Only the shadiest of car dealers
>>>>operate that way.
>>>
>>>I was surprised the first time a dealer just handed me the keys and told
>>>me to take the vehicle out myself.
>>
>> I'm sorry to hear that. That you were surprised, that is. It should
>> have been something that you EXPECTED to happen. -Dave
>
> My wife and I have each been driving for nearly forty years, and neither
> one of us have ever heard of a dealer just handing the keys to the
> prospective customer for a test drive, any more than expecting to get the
> keys to a home before the sale formally closes. We are talking about many
> major domestic and foreign brand car dealers in lots of different cities.
> It must be one of those things where the custom differs in different parts
> of the country.

I haven't either and I have been driving about the same.

"Mortimer Schnurd" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Dave, IF you are in California, be DAMN glad you didnt sign up with T-Mo!
> You would have been roaming on Ching-Chingular's system as T-Mo has
> ZERO sites in Southern California.
> While "GSM" sounds great when you have a good signal, their 1800-1925Mhz
> signals
> DO NOT get inside a lot of buildings.

Before Cingular screwed us and we thought our service was good we had to sit
by the window in our house to get service. After GSM the phone wouldn't
work in our house. We had to go outside. I can't get outside by myself so
the cell phone was now a paper weight. We switched to Verizon and there is
literally no place in our home that we lose signal. The signal is so great
with Verizon we could drop our land lines.

Verizon's 820-894Mhz CDMA system is a
> LOT
> more robust and will see you with up to 6 sites at the same time (soft
> handoff).
> Verizon has TWO ***MAJOR*** longtime customers that they cater to.
> "On-Star"
> and the California Dept of Highways (Caltrans) for service to freeway and
> highway
> callboxes.Look at the callboxes and see the 880Mhz antennas on them.
> On Cingular how many calls did you miss when inside a store or other
> commercial building?
> If Cingular REALLY had their **** together they COULD make a "kick
> ass/take names" system!
> First off, take all the old AT&T TDMA handsets out of service and GIVE
> them new dual-band GSM handsets.
> Convert all the old AT&T 880Mhz TDMA sites to GSM and overlay them into
> the existing 1800Mhz GSM system.
> The new 880Mhz GSM system would fill in where the 1800Mhz system stops at
> the door.
> The main problem is the CHEAP-ASS BASTARDS at Ching-Chingular wont lay out
> the front money. Instead they
> continue to piss off the public, make poor excuses and continue to provide
> substandard overall service. If thier shareholders
> ever figure it out the **** would hit the fan.
> This is really a shame as there are TONS of really cool GSM handsets
> available everywhere.
> Meanwhile, I will continue to use my Verizon SCH-730,Samsung 6000 (2 of
> them) and my PC-5220 datacard (so I can watch my DISH network) on my
> laptop while away from the house (YES..it IS that fast)
> In Los Angeles California Verizon wins the system award hands down! there
> is no comparasion in voice or especially data from
> NEXTIME/SPLINT,CHINGULAR or the now defunct (thank god) (A)ll (T)urd
> (T)elephone.
>
>
>

> Before Cingular screwed us and we thought our service was good we had to
> sit by the window in our house to get service. After GSM the phone
> wouldn't work in our house. We had to go outside. I can't get outside
> by myself so the cell phone was now a paper weight. We switched to
> Verizon and there is literally no place in our home that we lose signal.
> The signal is so great with Verizon we could drop our land lines.
>

We dropped our landline many months ago in favor of Cingular cell phones
(only). No regrets. We recently had to switch to Verizon for cell phone
service, but we still don't have a landline phone. We still use JUST
cellular phones. In the recent Consumer Reports magazine, they strongly
recommend that people still throw money at the phone company to maintain a
landline. I strongly disagree with CR, as usual. It might make sense to
have a landline in a house with many occupants and few cell phones. But if
you have one cell phone for every person in the house, and they all have
good signal, then the landline is a TOTAL waste of money!!! -Dave

In article <[email protected]>,
Mike T. <[email protected]> wrote:

> In the recent Consumer Reports magazine, they strongly
> recommend that people still throw money at the phone company to maintain a
> landline. I strongly disagree with CR, as usual.

My Verizon cell works great everywhere except inside my apartment.
Frustrating. By rather than throw ~$60 at Verizon's landline service
(it's outrageous up here -- that's just for a basic line & caller ID),
I signed up for Vonage's $15 a month plan, since I have cable internet
already. It works great! And it'll save me about $600 this year.

>> In the recent Consumer Reports magazine, they strongly
>> recommend that people still throw money at the phone company to maintain
>> a
>> landline. I strongly disagree with CR, as usual.
>
> My Verizon cell works great everywhere except inside my apartment.
> Frustrating. By rather than throw ~$60 at Verizon's landline service
> (it's outrageous up here -- that's just for a basic line & caller ID),
> I signed up for Vonage's $15 a month plan, since I have cable internet
> already. It works great! And it'll save me about $600 this year.

I'd have to re-read the article, but I believe CR recommended that even YOU
should have a landline phone. VOIP like Vonage was recommended not to
replace the land-line, but to save money on long-distance. From memory.
Note again that I do not agree with CR. There are some households that
could benefit from having a land-line phone. However, at least 80% of
land-line users could probably have the land-line service disconnected, and
NEVER MISS IT. -Dave

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:06:03
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>Mike T. wrote:
>>> Indeed. There's also the problem of people running up and stiffing the
>>> dealer
>>> on large air time bills, so the issue is even bigger than that. There's
>>> just
>>> not enough margin in cellular sales.
>>
>> As I wrote before, have the handsets programmed to ONLY connect to
>> 911
>> other customers of the same cellular provider (mobile to mobile enabled) AND
>> customer service 800 number
>>
>> No large airtime bills. -Dave
>
>Actually it's quite easy to do the 911 part of that because unactivated
>handsets will connect just fine. The problem there is that you may be
>roaming onto a non-native network and not know it.

Calling 911 to test a phone is a VERY bad idea!

>It wouldn't be difficult for a cellular store to have a few phones that
>they let people take out as loaners in order to test coverage. As you
>said, they could have them set up only to call in-network.

What's the big deal? You can buy a cheap prepaid phone, and return it for
credit.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:19:27
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>Of course the carriers that would object to the trial idea would also
>likely be the ones with the lousy coverage.

Black helicopter alert!

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:38:56
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>There are some independent stores that cell service from all the major
>carriers. What a great marketing story they could have: "Come to our
>store, leave a deposit, and take home phones on all four networks to
>test. Choose the one that works best for you."

If it's such a great idea, why do you suppose they don't do it? Hmmm...
Guess they're just not as smart as you are.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 9 Dec 2005 10:47:29
-0600, frechsm <[email protected]> wrote:

>I don't know about other carriers, but Cingular is cutting back on
>non-exclusive agents - agents that sell more then one carrier. In the
>upstate NY market, I don't believe we have any anymore.

Think Amazon.com

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>