Find Out How Low You Can Go.

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Author: Vogel, Andrew

Online Tools

Looking for real value? Look no further than our recently debuted Systems & Components section, which includes Price Point, Price Cuts and PriceGrabber. All three can be found at www.varbusiness.com/apps/toolbox.asp. You can now quickly determine what your competition is charging, where manufacturers and distributors have marked down prices the most and which online retailers offer the best deals on specific products.

How much above cost can you charge for systems and remain competitive? As the latest Price Point survey shows, markups vary considerably by vendor and product. One VAR marks up a Gateway 9200 server, for example, by 50 percent-and offers discounts of 10 to 15 percent. Compaq systems, on the other hand, are less lucrative. A fully loaded box is priced at $1,600 and carries a markup of just 10 percent. VARBusiness updates Price Point categories on a rotating basis, so the information is always fresh.

In the market for a notebook computer? Current reductions shown in Price Cuts range from $70 on a Dell model with a Pentium II processor, to $700 for an Apple PowerBook. Although an IBM ThinkPad 600 carries the same original price of $4,399 as the Apple, its reduction is a meager $100. Want to buy online? Buy.com currently has hardware available for as much as 49 percent under wholesale cost on items ranging from sound cards to memory.

Notebook computer savings

Vendor         Product                      Original   Reduction
                                               Price

Apple          PowerBook M7111LL/A            $4,399        $700
Compaq         Prosignia 162                  $3,299        $100
Compaq         Presario 1920                  $2,999        $200
Dell           Inspiron 700 PII 300           $4,104         $70
Hitachi        VisionBook Pro 7650-001        $2,399        $250
Hitachi        VisionBook Pro 7755-001        $2,599        $250
IBM            ThinkPad i1721                 $2,999        $300
IBM            ThinkPad 600 26455AU           $4,399        $200
NEC            Versa VS460A30                 $3,199        $100
Sharp          Actius A150                    $2,299        $300

What competitors charge

Vendor         Product                         Price      Markup

Apple          iMac                           $1,300          6%

Gateway        9200 server                    $8,000         50%

Compaq         Deskpro 5660: 450-MHz PII,     $1,600         10%
               128 MB/12 GB, 56K modem

IBM            S390 Server                  $500,000         40%

A-Open         300-MHz PII, 32 MB/4.3 GB      $1,100         10%

White Box      350-MHz PII, 56K modem,        $1,200         15%
               64 MB/4 GB, 15-inch
               monitor

Compaq         ProLiant 1600 server:          $2,250         15%
               300-MHz PII, 64 MB

NCR            300-MHz processor, 32 MB/6     $1,500         10%
               GB, 56K modem

Price Point is VARBusiness' online tool for comparing VAR pricing for goods and services

Price Cuts is VARBusiness' online tool for finding the latest hardware price reductions from manufacturers and distributors.

PriceGrabber searches for the best prices available from Buy.com and other e-tailers on computer peripherals, components and software.

Log on and save some money

Legend for Chart:

A - Product
B - Buy.com Price[*]
C - Wholesale Cost[a]
D - Difference

A

                                 B           C           D

EtherExpress Pro/10+ Single ENet 10Base-T Intel

                            $24.95      $49.09       49.2%

Borland Turbo Assembler V.5.0 Win3.X/Win95 Single 1-Doc

                            $52.95     $103.68       48.9%

Sound Blaster Live! Value PCI 32-bit 256-Voice

                            $42.95      $82.95       48.2%

4-MB VRAM for the PowerMac G3 Desktop and Tower

                            $26.95      $49.75       45.8%

Stealth II G460 8-MB SDRAM Full AGP2X EOL Diamond

                            $44.95      $82.53       45.5%

EtherLink IIIB ENet ISA16 10-MB 10Base-T only W/SW TPO

                            $28.95      $52.25       44.6%

16-MB EDO DIMM F/6592 6562 IBM

                            $28.95      $49.50       41.5%

32-MB RAM EDO DIMM for 700 series notebooks CTX

                            $74.95     $126.73       40.9%

EtherLink XL PCI Combo Adapter 10Base-T

                            $68.95     $116.12       40.6%

* Prices may change.

a Approximate.

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By Andrew Vogel