AMITIAE - Tuesday 29 May 2012
Buying Adobe Lightroom in Bangkok: Online for Better Service |
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By Graham K. Rogers
Now that Lightroom 4 is out, with a lot of improvements, he feels it is in his interests to make the effort so wrote email to all of the local dealers of Adobe products he could find. He contacted me 8 days later when none of them had replied. By coincidence, as we were chatting, two did send replies, but this was in response to a rather fiery follow up that he had sent. My suggestion was to take the online route. I cannot remember the last time I bought boxed software -- maybe it was Snow Leopard. For years I have been downloading shareware with few problems (a couple of programs I haven't liked, perhaps). All my applications now, especially since the Mac App Store changed the dynamics, are purchased online. The Lightroom update on the Adobe site was shown as $79 (2436 baht). Note that price.
There was VAT of 7% on top of that with a total price of 10,165 baht (when he would only want one of the two). Delivery was 2 - 3 weeks. Compare this with the $79 for the download from Adobe (above): instant, after Adobe's tedious registration process. As I said: online purchasing and downloads work for me. Customer service is better with a computer too.
Pricing too is not keeping pace with global markets. Rather than having a product in stock, items are ordered (probably from Singapore) as and when a customer wants an item. The time delay is unsatisfactory as well as the markup, particularly when other avenues are open to buyers. The corporations whose products are being marketed are not being served properly either. It may be a small market, but there is no apparent motivation to expand. Consumers here are often the last consideration.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. |
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