My school recently bought all students chromebooks and it got me thinking. If they can buy 5000 chromebooks for 20$ a pop, why does it cost me 80 to buy one individually? what am i missing?
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As others mentioned there are things like software agreements, and educational discounts.
There are also direct discounts since you as a consumer, generally cannot get the same price that a store would buy the product for from the manufacturer.
If you walk into Best Buy and spend $80 on a chrome book, Best Buy didn’t buy it from Acer for $80.
Acer may sell a direct to consumer version on their website but it’ll be the same price(or close) to retail as to not undercut their retail outlets since this gives Acer higher profits.
There are also things like transport and package costs. Sending 10 laptops to 20 different stores in retail packing that looks nice for customers cost more than sending 200 laptops to one school in the most basic cardboard boxes possible.
Unsure if laptops do this, but in some markets shelf space is contested. To display a product at a market companies will be in discussions with stores to have bigger displays, more of their products on shelves, exclusive deals, etc. With bulk orders all of that is eliminated.
A school buying hundreds or thousands of laptops can directly ask Acer, or someone farther up the supply chain about buying pallets full of laptops.
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