There seems to be a lot of assumptions that we get parts for cheap and make a huge profit on everything. Let me counter with some facts.
First, ethic. Last I knew, it is a violation of contract with Apple for authorized resellers to sell parts to the public. Just like Apple, they are supposed to offer repair to the public, not parts sales. Some of our competitors offer much cheaper parts than us because they are violating their contract with Apple and are directly selling parts to the public. We have not gone this route for cheaper parts and cheaper prices because it's wrong to do so.
Second, quality. Some of our competitors offer cheaper parts because they are Chinese parts that are oftentimes incomplete. You get what you pay for. We have found that ordering parts from China is hit-or-miss on whether the parts have all the promised components or not. Sometimes it works great, and we can offer parts for cheaper. Sometimes the parts are missing vital components that are promised on our products, and we can't sell them. We have purchased parts from competitors and have been shocked to find vital pieces missing, contrary to what was indicated on their site. It's like eBay: you pay less, but the risk is higher. We actually have a pretty strict testing process. We're certainly not perfect, and malfunctions do happen, but we try really hard to ensure that a part purchased from iFixit is great quality.
It turns out that just as you need to eat, so do we! Would you prefer that we offer bad parts by unethical means? We're not willing to go that route. Our desire is to offer products that are as competitively priced as possible without compromising quality or ethic. And we're proud of that.
Come on guys. We're not sitting on a pile of cash while you try to scrape a living in a good trade. Business and pricing is a complicated situation (as the back-and-forth between rdklinc and Majesty indicates), but we're interested in maintaining a relationship of brand trust with our customers at a competitive rate. If we can lower prices, we will. If we can't, we won't. That's all we can do!
