You could be forgiven for assuming that the best place to buy iPod and iPhone accessories is the Apple Store. After all, Apple spends an incredible amount of money on marketing to make sure that you buy everything through their retail outlets. The Apple Store has not one, but two Achilles heels, though. First of all, they don’t carry accessories for other manufacturer’s products, it’s strictly a one trick pony; so if you’re looking for a new case for your iPod along with LG cell phone covers, you’re going to have to look somewhere else. A spare recharger for your Blackberry? Not very likely, Don’t even think about shopping for Samsung cell phone covers in one of those fancy glass retail outlets or the web store. Apple’s other weakness is pricing. Because its customers are essentially captive (or at least many of them behave as though they are), the Apple Store seldom offers sale pricing.
We recently compared the offerings and prices for a range of Apple product accessories at the Apple store and another popular web retailer. First, we shopped for arm band cases for the iPod Touch, always a popular accessory for joggers. At Apple, they start at $29.95, but the alternate retailer has a similar model on sale for under 24 bucks. We thought it might be interesting to pick out a common accessory for the newest iPod Nano and settled on the Apple Dock Connector USB Cable, the part that iPod users seem to lose most frequently. The Apple Store currently lists this at $19, which seemed reasonable until we checked the other site and found they were offering the OEM Apple cable for less than ten dollars. Finally we looked at iPod Mini accessories, but that wasn’t a fair comparison because the Apple Store doesn’t stock any. Ironic, isn’t it? And it goes without saying that shopping for anything else, like HTC replacement batteries or LG cell phone covers will be a short and unsuccessful trip to the Apple Store.
One last thing to consider: while other web retailers offer free shipping on orders over $40, at Apple’s online store you have to spend $50 or you’ll be paying for shipping costs.
The bottom line is that there are web retailers that offer accessories for a wide range of products, including, but not limited to, Apple’s popular iPhones, iPods and MacBooks, along with products for a numerous cell phone and smart phone producers. Samsung cell phone covers, Bluetooth headsets compatible with many phones, memory cards, screen protectors, laptop cases, LG cell phone covers and Blackberry chargers, all in one place and at competitive pricing. They also carry the new accessories for iPhone 4 including the special designs to rock out your Apple iPhone 4. So don’t overspend on Apple products because there are better options out there!