News: ASUS to begin selling its notebooks in Best Buy 2H this year

By 2H that could mean as early as this July. Digitimes posted the article here, despite it being days old: http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070412PB207.html (I just happen to notice that nobody mentioned word of this yet).

This obviously means good news for ASUS in my opinion since they really can't just depend on limited/small resellers in selling their notebooks - they need mass retailers like Best Buy to get their notebooks across to the consumers.

This is also good news for us, the consumers since we now no longer need to listen solely to the biased (or unbiased) comments of ASUS owners wanting nothing but justification of their huge purchases. It's about time that ASUS lets us, the consumers, to sample the laptops before purchasing them!

 

They've been selling G1s out of BB for awhile now. It's been covered here.

 

The article says "high end notebooks," but as loopty said, they already market the G1 in their stores. I guess Asus is just increasing their shipments of G1's? It'd be great if some article gave a definite answer on the question of whether or not Asus is integrating the rest of its notebook line into Best Buy (i.e. V1J, A8J, W2, etc.)

 

FREN, the article used the word 'notebooks' as in the plural form which implies that they may indeed bring on the "higher" end notebooks such as the W and V series for the consumers to toy with.

In response to loopty, yes, BestBuy has been selling the G1 for some time now (I posted that news article upon its advent). But, its paucity in retail stores and limititation to online-sales only still doesn't let the consumer toy with the laptop itself. The prices are even worst compared to say MilestonePC.

This news article basically hints at mass display of ASUS notebooks alongside counterparts such as HP, Toshiba, and Sony. That'd be nice.

 

Get to see them in person before buying... Awesome!

 

And I suppose best buy warranty too =D

 

Asus of course wants BB to sell more and more of their products, but Asus will try to make it different with channel partner, to make it balanced between channel and retail, Asus will be very careful with each step they move forward. Like the G1, in BB, it has no case and mouse and 1 yr local warranty, that means the model in channel is better that the one in BB.

I saw someone posted here couple of days ago, mentioning BB raised the price to $1999 for unknow reason. Today, I had a tour with Asus guys and asked them about this $200 price change. Asus said they heard of that, that was BB's own decision, Asus didn't do anything, didn't raise BB G1 cost.

 

I just hope ASUS doesn't start building junk to meet some ridiculous $600 price point to try and compete with Dell or HP, or cut quality to eek out a teeny bit more profit.

I chose ASUS because of superior quality compared to other manufacturers, as well as a certain "boutique" status the brand carried. I'm not sure this will still be the case when my z63a is ready to retire.

 

No, Asus won't do that, Asus admits it is almost impossible for Asus to beat them on that price range.

 

that's heartening... realistically, it's one of their strengths/selling points.

 

Milestone - I think with BestBuy stocking these ASUS laptops that would also mean a good thing for your business as well since that would allow more people to feel these laptops beforehand and then search online for the best prices, possibly directing traffic towards your site. I myself plan to do this in the future!

Besides, I don't think it's worth forking a premium out to Best Buy seeing that their customer support is nothing better than what you'd get from an online vendor. And I'd have to pay sales tax on top of that.

 

Its inevitable their move towards bb and circuit city and the rest of the chains. it is actually good for the mail order resellers. I refer everone that says "i want tosee it in person" to bestbuy who only stocks one model now in retail. it is also inevitable that asus will expand beyond most of the popular name brands and eventually there will be little room for any oem other then the existing giants and resellers if they choose to keep the channel unlike dell. i see little potenial for 2nd and 3rd tier oems like avertek and a few others. If asus kicks their foot into the door of retail sales they will be the first manuf to make this move wich is unprecedented.

 

It is precedented.

Sony originally made their own notebooks. Toshiba, Acer.

Lennovo also.

It would follow a well established pattern. When the brand name establishes itself to consumers its likely asus wont even make them any more.

 

Yeah, and look how those brands all went to crap. Sonys overheat like there's no tomorrow. Toshiba sacrifices build quality for the cheapest laptop possible, and Acer's fall apart after 6 months.

Hopefully this doesn't happen to Asus ..

 

I think it is good for ASUS to become more mainstream because that would be more pressure to their quality assurance and customer service department. As far as I'm concerned, these two aspects are not their strengths right now.

 

And as mentioned from Danny, they are upping their customer service, as well as their shipping methods, as Asus will cover both way using Fedex shipping for RMA and users will be able to drop off their notebook at Fedex / Kinko stores around them. Or wait for the FedEx carrier to come to their house.

 

You actually are 100% wrong. Their qa is at the top of the food chain. their home support is too. some people (no names) equate asus home to dell gold overnight business. dell charges for better support. asus does not. equate asus support to dell support for home. asus is light years ahead in every aspect.
How much better can your qa be when your rma rate is the lowest in the world?
They really do not need to improve on either one. they are doing a very fine job in both. what they need to do is slipstream their product line and offer less chassis. The wide variety costs them money and can make a tedious job of keeping track of replacement parts.

 

Not all Best Buy stores have ASUS notebooks right now. The one nearest to where I live do not carry them. That should change, however. Hopefully, people that know nothing about ASUS notebooks will appreciate what they have to offer.

 

Really? Cool! Could you post or PM me the RMA rates for Asus and the remainder of the top 5 ODMs or OEMs? I'd be interested.

 

You know acer was orignally a high quality odm. They were a much larger company than asus,asus is actually a split off of acer.

They bought the travelmate name from texas instruments and begun marketing their own machines. The acer name meant tough business. The word means something like acorn shell which must mean tough in china.
That was what they made they made thinkpads and travelmates. They were also the worlds largest laptop lcd maker.
But compal could make laptops even cheaper than they could sell it to themselves. So that is what the aspire line is.

there is no reason for asus to make a machine like the a8f and sell it for 800 when they could get compal to make it and sell it for 600 and it would work out fine for the consumer. Thats what we may see if the asus brand name becomes popular in retail.
Asus making machines like the g1 and quanta or inventec etc making the a8jr type machine.

 

I knew Asus was going to try and boost sales in 2007, so this looks like a step in the right direction for them. There are not to many places in the US, where you can walk in and view Asus notebooks, so even if BB's price is to expensive, you can always view it in person there, then buy elsewhere.

 

Acer was a very high end ODM as stamar mentioned but they gradually offered low end items, and in doing that, their reputation fell. So they split into Acer and BenQ, with Acer being low to mid end in all their manufacturing items, and BenQ being the high ends.

 

Acer is a very complicated company.
AUO, wistron, benq, compal and asus are all companies that formed from wings of acer.
So in the past acer was a company like asus is now. But currently they are a non manufacturing company, a design and retail company only.
Most of the people who come here are trying to figure out what they want and to attach a name brand to it. But its so complicated as to what the name brand means.