Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security
Buy what ? Where? hun?
You read right... Burger King is opening its first restaurant in India and is hoping eBay will help drive sales. You were able to pre-order a Mutton Whopper on eBay or 128 rupees ($US 2.08 - $CAD 2.38 - £ 1.31).
Pre-ordering one meant you got a voucher for a burger and a Whopper TShirt.
Link to auction page (link)
700mhz is an incredible band that every carrier wants to get a hold off. It goes through buildings like a hot knife in butter. It reaches much further which is great for providing coverage is rural areas. Canada is about to auction is highly prized band and 15 bidders wanted in on the action. Now Industry Canada has published the final list of qualified bidders.
The auction starts mid-January and the government is hopeful this will spur wireless competition.
A short video by the Government of Canada explaining that Canadians deserve more choice, more competitive pricing and better contract terms.
15 bidders submitted bids for the upcoming 700mhz wireless auction, you can see the list here. On November 8, it will publish the list of qualified bidders that have submitted the required deposit (those who will be allowed to participate in the auction).
The official statement from the government was:
"Today, Industry Canada published the list of applicants for the 700 MHz spectrum auction scheduled for January 14, 2014. This high-quality spectrum will soon be deployed across Canada, providing Canadians with dependable, high-speed wireless services on the latest technologies.
"Well before this summer's public debate on wireless policy, our Government introduced a number of measures to create more choice in Canada's wireless market and to defend consumers. As a result, prices have come down, the number of jobs in the wireless sector has increased and consumers have more choices. This trend will continue as a result of January's auction.
"In addition to this auction, our Government will continue to aggressively pursue policies that ensure consumer interests are at the core of all Government decisions." - link
My most recent articles have been product reviews and a question I received from 2 readers was related to buying some of these items from online auction sites (eBay being the 800 lb. gorilla). The readers wanted to know :
Is it was “safe” to buy higher end electronics on eBay
Having spent some time in Asia, I have seen firsthand similar looking replicas made available in the open market. Sure you can find fake sportswear, sunglasses and DVDs but you can also find very convincing Mophie branded battery packs, headphones and even electronics (smartphones, music players, etc).
As a test, I recently purchase a Mophie JuicePack Air that was priced below market price (which aroused my suspicion). The eBay item was packaged exactly like the retail one I had purchased locally. Everything was perfect from the wording and design of the box, to the placement of the stickers and the manual manual (even the manual was an exact replica - There were no glaring English mistakes or misprint. It looked perfect.)
After 1 week of testing, I quickly realized something was wrong. The eBay acquired device drained its batter 70% faster than the real Mophie JuicePack Air (purchased from a reliable brick and mortar store in Canada. Plus the eBay one seemed to heat up a lot. I decided to disassemble both the eBay one and an older Mophie JuicePack Air, that I was no longer using, to compare. I discovered that the internal guts were very different. I contacted Mophie support with some of the additional information and was told the device I was holding was counterfeit.
The eBay seller had fantastic feedback and a long history of online sales. The only red flag was the slightly lower than market price for the item and the fact that it shipped from Hong Kong. I reached out to some other blog authors that had written about buying counterfeit items on eBay and learned that some of them came from the UK and even the US, so ship location doesn’t seem to be a good filter. One author even complained of receiving a counterfeit product from an Amazon reseller (not Amazon but someone selling through Amazon).
As long as there are buyers looking for “good deals”, you can be sure someone will try to take advantage of the situation.
Most eBay sellers are honest and will provide excellent service but there are a few bad apples in the bunch. Some manufacturers now refuse to warranty items purchase on eBay and demand a retail receipt for warranty claims.
If you are in the market for higher-end electronics (headphone amps, headphones, name brand accessories), find out who is an authorized online reseller and buy directly from their ecommerce site. Check out price comparison using tools like Google Product or Amazon.com (in the US). In Canada, you can use price comparison sites like dealgenius.ca, pricegrabber, Nextag or shopbot.
