any education discounts?

hey there pplz

was wondering does asus offer any education personal purchase discounts in any country??

thought since im paying so much to be in uni why not milk a bit back eh hehe...

thanks heaps!

 

It is not a matter how much you pay, wether a dealer can give you a discount is based on how much the dealer is making, all dealers have about the same cost, no dealer will give $20 discount if he is only making $10, if one can give $300 discount means he is making $300+ (clearance doesn't count), no matter how a dealer offers discount, after all the disocunt and expense, he must have profit left, otherwise, you won't see the dealer there for a long time. Don't forget credit card company takes away 2-3% first of all, usualy even sell at MSRP, dealers only have about $100 profit after credit card company fee. Any discount or special offer is from this $100, and the dealers must have somthing left after the discount they offer to cover rental, advertisement, utility, salary and diaper for the boss's baby.

 

ASUS themselves don't, but some dealers do.

Best to actually look around at dealer sites.

 

gateway, dell and hp offer discounts. I am sure other companies do as well, but those are the first that come to mind.

 

Asus also gives special deal if we have a big education project or government bid...., if the first post was talking about this case, then the answer is yes, if he was talking about a student / professor purchase, then the discount is upto the dealer, Asus will do nothing.

 

How big? What if students here organized a group buy?

~ Brett

 

Have never thought about that way, usually for a special deal we need supporting document, the project detail, the competitors models and prices,
it is not an easy job like you call a few of your friends to buy together, if some one can organize couple of hundred buyers together, it might work, but I don't know how much discount you are expecting, I will say a reasonable discount is only about $100 for that amount of purchase, I don't know if everyone thinks that $100 is worth the waiting and all the works.

 

What if we could organize somewhere around 40 people here, each with proper school credentials and all wanting the exact same model. If we got $75-100 off like that I would be very willing to help organize a group buy. Any thoughts?

~ Brett

 

If you can do that, I will try it for you.

 

Alright - I'm gonna start a thread for the W3J since it's, A. what I'm hoping to get and, B. has a lot of interest. Let me know if there's anything I don't cover in the thread.

~ Brett

 

We have done this before for educational bids, but there's one serious difference. An institution can get better prices because they have better credit, aren't using credit cards, get incentives from the government which help remove the duties that are paid to bring the systems into the countries, etc. Likewise, insitutions have backing for situations like these and Asus knows they're going to get their money and it won't effect retail sales. In the past we've seen what happens to someone who tells Asus they have an educational bid, loses it, and then tries to sell the units to the public.

I can tell you from past experience that a group buy of 40 might save you $75, but it would have to be for a stock unit and you've got to wait for 40 other people people to join. I brought up the idea to the forum about a month ago that we're going to start a group buy for all forum members for the Merom models and see how things go. Basically, for a group buy, the more people you include, the better you can make the prices. The cheaper you can make the entire transaction, the more you can give back to the end user. The more than likely solution for a group buy may actually be in accessories or wireless products. This is actually something that we successfully did with the W3v advanced order back in 2005. Everyone recieved an Asus wireless router valued at $100. So the idea of "saving" money on a notebook is sort of out there when you're talking about Asus. Basically, anyone who has or wants an Asus knows that they're a great value for what you're getting. There is something behind that..... Asus needs to price their products at a level that will compete with what else is on the market at the same configuration level........ which often means that Asus and the dealers make less in order to price the notebooks at the level they are set at because Asus is putting more into the systems but knows they still have to be competitive. So, the likelihood of say setting up a group buy for a notebook and getting a free extra battery or something along the lines of a deep discount at the very least on something like that would probably be the best direction to go.

So, with that in mind, my idea for a group buy, which again was mentioned a while back, was to have ALL members (new and old) approach us based on this idea and after a list had been complied and figured worked out, we could give an idea of how much everyone would save at certain quantity levels. Approaching a group buy for an item that isn't even produced yet is risky in a way, but it also keeps people from gettnig ticked off about others making their payments and so forth. What we're going to do for members is basically combine the member discount, cash discount and then from there, a quantity discount. We'll give a set period of a month or so to join the group buy and then a period of probably a week or so once the product finally gets through customs, to send in payments (certified check, money order, or bank wire transfer). This helps eliminate having people hold up funds for a long period of time. So, by including all members, the counts should get higher. By making the payments in forms of cash not only help give a deeper discount, but also ensures us and other group buy members that their price is locked in because everyone's purchase is locked in. This also helps new members get member discounts they typically won't be able to get for a while as well.

Group buys would be on a system to system basis and would start over after every group buy was completed. For those looking for what may be less popular models, if the group buy closes with less than the quota for a discount level, members can still get the set member discount and cash discount if they continue. I'm the one that came up with the idea, so I'm the lucky one set to run them. Anyone with questions can contact me directly via my email in my signature. My main point of contention would be to know who would actually be interested, what model they'd be interested in, could they submit the long wait to get the deals, and which type of savings honestly sounds best (ie: what may be $75 cash, a free extra battery worth more like $120, or say a heavily discounted extended warranty of 3 years in stead of 1 which is valued at $170)?

 

You are selling to end users. You are not selling a huge volume to a school or govt. All you are doing is sending student id to asus and they give them or you a break. The same will be offered to other dealers if they offer it to you. If you use the forum as a billboard outside of our modest sigs then other resellers will jump all over it. Its only natural.