As Apple releases iPhone 6 and 6 plus, a new fashion has been brought up. People feel cool when they walk around with an iPhone 6 or 6 plus in their hands. They want to get the iPhones as soon as possible so some of them would buy the phone no matter how expensive it is. Since the iPhone 6s haven’t been released in the mainland China yet, the dealers in the mainland’s grey market for smartphones see their chance of making big money. They stock the iPhones from US, and then resell them in China. Initially, they were earning an enormous monopoly profit, but then more suppliers come into the market– people from Hongkong. These individual sellers could get their hands on the new iPhones with a much lower cost, which means that they sell the iPhones at a lower price.
Indeed people would go for a lower price. The accident subjected the grey market to a deadly blow. It is reported “they have lost heavily by betting on Apple’s new iPhone 6.” No one wants to buy the iPhones from them anymore, and they have stocked too much, they couldn’t even balance their cost.
As mentioned in Zhenxi’s post about iPhone 6 reseller’s lost out, these resellers were trying to earn big profit, but in the end they lost a lot. I think that they made couple mistakes during the process. They didn’t understand what business they are in; they targeted the vulnerable people, and they didn’t plan well ahead.
Picture:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/19/iphone-6-launch-day-scenes-from-around-the-world-