Buying Apple equipment from Amazon versus Apple

November 7, 2023 11:20 AM

Following my previous question, I've tentatively decided to buy a 5th generation iPad Air. Should I buy it from Amazon (cheaper) or from Apple (better in some way)?

I've bought a lot of Apple equipment over many years, and for the most part I've purchased it from Apple. But now it seems like I should be purchasing from Amazon, unless I need a custom configuration that I can only get from Apple.

Amazon is currently offering a 9% discount off list price on the model I want. In addition, I get 5% back from my Amazon credit card. All told, that's about a hundred dollars cheaper than the price from Apple.

Apple has some holiday-related extended return policy, but I don't think I'll need that.

Am I missing anything here? Am I likely to get equipment that is bad in some way from Amazon?

posted by Winnie the Proust to Shopping (26 answers total)

This might not be relevant to you because you get the extra cash back through Amazon, but for the record, Best Buy does price matching, and you'll have the additional security of being able to pick it up at the Best Buy store without having to worry so much about getting bad equipment or an otherwise messed up shipment from Amazon. I usually go the Best Buy route for this reason.
posted by yasaman at 11:32 AM on November 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

In addition, I get 5% back from my Amazon credit card.

Do you also get a certain percent back on non-Amazon purchases? That could make something like Best Buy a closer match. (Regarding bad equipment, when you buy on Amazon who don't actually know whose stock you're receiving; even when it says "sold by Amazon" or whatever, that doesn't mean much about the provenance of the stock since apparently they mix all the stock from all the different third-party sellers together. So it can make sense not to buy sensitive items there, things where you want to trust the supply chain.)
posted by trig at 11:46 AM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Discounts and such aside: There is no difference in the product you'll receive from Amazon vs Apple vs any other source.

I will say that with Amazon you may want to watch out for who is selling the product, since counterfeits have been known to come from third-party shops selling via Amazon.

I am not addressing issues like ethics, etc, just the core "is there a difference in the product I will receive." There is not.
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:04 PM on November 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

I do not trust that Apple products sold via Amazon are actual Apple products rather than very very good fakes. I'm thinking more of ear pods rather than iPads, but Amazon seems to allow lots of sketchy tech products.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:29 PM on November 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

FWIW, woot.com (owned by Amazon) has iPad bundles, which may suit you better... or not.
posted by kschang at 12:59 PM on November 7, 2023

for stuff like this, where it's expensive and commonly counterfeited, i would not buy from amazon. i would go direct with apple for an ipad.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:13 PM on November 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Most of the time when I've ordered expensive things from Amazon it's been fine, but there was one time when I nearly got scammed. I received an empty box, so either a previous customer had ordered the same thing, taken the item, and returned the empty box (which got resold to me), or the seller was running a scam themselves. Anyway, I managed to get my money back after a bit of back-and-forth with customer support, but have since decided not to purchase expensive things from Amazon anymore.
posted by ambulatorybird at 1:16 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, and I'll add that Amazon co-mingles all their inventory, so even if select an item that's "sold by Amazon", there's no guarantee you won't get a counterfeit from some other seller's stock.
posted by ambulatorybird at 1:19 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I would buy from Costco if that's an option, you'll get a $100 discount ($60 less than Amazon's list price), and be able to take advantage of their generous return policy & tech concierge, in addition to any Apple Care you may purchase.
posted by mcgsa at 1:35 PM on November 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

Amazon's shipping process is designed to be fast and cheap, the quality of packaging used, in my experience has no relationship to the value of the items. Given that, I would consider a 15% discount about right but not any kind of bargain.

If you do buy an expensive item from Amazon a good tip is to accurately weigh the item when it arrives and compare that with the manufacturers spec (I caught them out once by doing that).
posted by Lanark at 1:42 PM on November 7, 2023

Amazon's extended holiday return period is in effect right now, too, so that's not even a difference at the moment. That said...

I bought my 2009 Mac Pro there in 2009. I was about to say I would not trust Amazon to actually ship me an iPad (or computer) these days, but I also just now am realizing I bought my friend an iPad there last Christmas, so I guess I wasn't thinking about it then. It turned out OK, but I probably still wouldn't do it again.

There are a bunch of other sites which offer deals on iPads, which could even match or exceed your extra 5% back. Best Buy and Costco would be good options, and I would also recommend B&H.

There's also the option of shopping an Apple gift card sale, which anymore generally means something like 10% back in the form of a store gift card to wherever you bought the Apple gift card. Amazon runs this sale on a regular basis, and you would get your 5% back on that too. (e.g. Thanksgiving 2022 when it was 15% back) Or if you have a Discover card and Cashback Rewards available, right now they are offering 15% extra value for redemptions towards Apple gift cards. In either case, then use the Apple gift card to purchase directly from Apple whenever you'd like.

FWIW, Apple's Black Friday sale last year was a $50 Apple gift card with the purchase of any iPad.

(Also, the sixth-generation iPad Air is expected early next year, so something to keep in mind if you are wanting to maximize your bang for the buck.)
posted by tubedogg at 2:04 PM on November 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I would never buy an Apple product from Amazon because of the problem with counterfeiting.

There is no way to order something from Amazon and be completely sure the item won't come from a third-party seller. I have ordered things that were clearly marked as coming from Amazon and ended up getting packages from someone else. And if it's from a third-party seller, there's no way to know it's not counterfeit.
posted by FencingGal at 2:09 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

My non-responsive answer is Costco because they are so great for electronics purchases.
posted by notjustthefish at 3:05 PM on November 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Mod note: Comment removed. Please stick to answering the question instead of sharing your opinion about the founder of a company.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 3:17 PM on November 7, 2023

My spouse bought an ostensibly-new heated massaging pad off of Amazon a couple years ago and it showed up covered in dog hair. So be aware that Amazon resells returned products without checking whether the returned products are in resalable condition.
posted by heatherlogan at 3:32 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are too many good-looking Apple fakes for me to buy from anyone but Apple unless I can inspect the item first.

When trying to purchase a used iPhone 15 Pro Max, for instance, I contacted almost 140 sellers on Facebook. 139 of them were counterfeit, some of them excellent knock-offs. Yes, FB isn't Amazon, but when it's almost impossible to determine the difference, why risk it?
posted by dobbs at 4:17 PM on November 7, 2023

One reason to buy from Apple directly rather than someone else is that it means Apple is both the manufacturer and the retailer.

In many jurisdictions, it’s the retailer, not the manufacturer, who is legally required to make sure what they sell you is of suitable quality and lasts for a reasonable period of time. If Apple is the retailer as well as the manufacturer, this means they have extra obligations to you — obligations that can last beyond the expiry of the manufacturer’s warranty. The practical effect of this is that you can sometimes claim a free repair from Apple you would otherwise have to pay for.

I benefited from this with an iPhone that had its display fail: it was outside the warranty period but the law where I am says that phones should last a certain number of years and it was still within that time-frame, so Apple did the repair for free.
posted by kyten at 5:22 PM on November 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

My wife and I bought AirPod Pros a couple of years ago from Amazon, though we usually buy Apple stuff directly from Apple. The AirPods were fine; Apple even replaced mine under AppleCare+ when I put them through the washing machine. Still, I prefer buying from Apple.
posted by lhauser at 5:31 PM on November 7, 2023

I bought my MacBook Air from the Apple Store on Amazon because of the discount plus prime card cash back and didn't have a problem.

I do prefer apple's signature on delivery vs Amazon's drop (photograph) and dash, so I shipped it to my mother in law's as I knew she would be home and we could watch for it from my delivery updates and her keeping an eye on the front porch.
posted by icaicaer at 6:27 PM on November 7, 2023

I bought an M1 Macbook Air from Amazon during the latest Prime Day because of the price. No complaints. I'd probably buy from Amazon if it saved me more than, say, $50. Apple store otherwise.
posted by TurnKey at 8:12 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don’t think it is possible to make anything more than a very superficial counterfeit of an iPad, so I wouldn’t worry about that. A fake iPad wouldn’t be able to run iPadOS, you wouldn’t be able to log into it with your appleid, serial number would be nonexistent or duplicated in Apple’s database, etc. I assume that Amazon would refund an obvious fake. Maybe it is possible to counterfeit Apple accessories like cables, chargers, etc. Amazon could have other issues, like reselling returned items, but counterfeit should not be a concern for this item.
posted by snofoam at 4:10 AM on November 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think Amazon listings like this are trustworthy, for new items like iPads and computers. Probably, iPhones and Apple Watches, too. Really, anything but accessories (like chargers, cables) are difficult to impossible to counterfeit in terms of the actual merchandise.

Used devices raise different issues—their condition, if they've been repaired, etc.

Note that you can buy AppleCare via that link in the same transaction.

To me, it comes down to whose immediate post-purchase support you prefer (as in, fulfillment, exchange of a plainly defective unit). Or if you want it engraved by Apple.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:08 AM on November 8, 2023

FB isn't Amazon

This is a completely different scenario akin to buying a phone from a street vendor, and has zero bearing on buying products from Amazon that Amazon itself is asserting are genuine, regardless of which reseller's stock is being picked.

If you buy an iPhone on Amazon from the main Apple product listing, the seller is shown as Amazon, and you receive an Upple 1Phun that Amazon somehow failed to screen out, Amazon is not going to refuse the exchange.

Repackaging refurbs is the only scam I'd be worried about, but the margins on that are pretty thin for current-gen devices.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:18 AM on November 8, 2023

I bought my iPad from the Apple store on Amazon during Prime Day last year. No issues.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:12 PM on November 8, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks all for all these perspectives. Really interesting. The Costco option was new to me, as was the option of buying discounted Apple Gift Cards. In the end I went with Amazon. I share the ethical concerns, but it is what my life could handle right now, and I'm not worried about counterfeits, or the reasons others have mentioned.

Marking this resolved.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:42 AM on November 10, 2023

I don’t think it is possible to make anything more than a very superficial counterfeit of an iPad

Counterfeits can include things like old models with slower processors being re-packaged and sold as new or Apple refurbished stock being flipped on Amazon for a small profit.
posted by Lanark at 2:13 AM on November 13, 2023