Is it better to buy iMac online or from Apple Store?

Not sure where you are located but I never seen anything except stock IMacs in the Apple stores near my house(Los Angeles). If you buy from Best Buy, Compusa, Frys and Circuit City and their is something wrong with your IMac with in the first 30 days they will just swap it out for a new one. After 30 days they refer you to the local Apple store anyways so not sure what the difference is really between buying from an Apple store or an Authorized Apple dealer on a stock machine. As a matter of fact Apple store will only exchange your purchase for a new machine with in the first 14 days so all retailers have a better return policy over Apple stores anyways.

And as far as BTO buying it from Apple store, Apple.com or 3rd party Authorized dealer who can place BTO all carry the same warrenty so you can take it to your local Apple store for service. So if you order a BTO via Apple store or not Apple store has to service it as Apple stores are the offical Apples Computer authorized service center.

So not sure why real advantage you have in buying an Apple computer from Apple store vs authorized retailer really is except paying more for the same thing.

When we say Apple Store, we mean stores owned and run by Apple. There are none in Australia. You're probably thinking of a good reseller, some of which are pretty close in look and feel to an Apple Store.

For example Best Buy right off the top will give you
2% back in rewards zone certs. And every couple of
month Best Buy runs a promo for instant $100-150 gift
card with purchase of any Apple Mac. Best Buy Also
runs other promo all the time like they had tripple
reward zone purchase day last week which basically
makes your savings 6%. And 3 weeks ago they had a
promo on PNY memory of free install and 33% off the
memory with purchase of any system which all mac
qualified also.

Where do you live? No Best Buy I have been to in three states carries Macs. And last time I had a triple points certificate it specifically excluded Apple products among others.

I bought my iMac on Amazon.com. I paid no tax, shipping was free and I got a $100 rebate. Unless you are a student it is hard to beat that one!

I live in West Los Angeles Ca. Use Zipcode 90210 on Best Buy web page and almost all the Best Buys in Los Angeles carry IMac in stock. All the Frys and Compusa also carry IMacs in stock. Circuit City in Santa Monica carries IMacs in stock also. I am willing to bet the same holds true for top 10 largest Cities in USA maybe in smaller towns these retailers dont carry Apple products in stock.

Here is a valid link to a Best Buy coupon for 10% off any purchase which does not exclude Apple Products.

http://www.bestbuybusiness.com/bbfb/en/US/adirect/bestbuy?cmd=BBFBStaticContent& id=specialoffers/bm10off.html

Here are the coupons for bonus points and triple points from last week email as you can tell from both coupons they only exclude Bose, KEF audio, HP ink and open box item but not apple products.

http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuyUS/en_US/images/external/emails/101006_core250.pdf

http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuyUS/en_US/images/external/emails/101006_core_doubtrip.pdf

So I guess Best Buy is hard up for Apple Sales in Los Angeles Area I posted links to the last 3 coupons that Best Buy has email me over the last month.

I paid $1671.99 for my 24" IMac + $102.99 per 1 Gig Pny memory X2 + $54.99 for wireless keyboard + $64.99 for wireless Bluethooth mouse. And I bought my IMac on Oct 19 with $100 instant GC + 33% discount on any memory upgraded purchased with new computer then went back to apply the tripple point bonus on OCT 22 then I got a coupon in the mail on Oct 27 for 12% off any 1 item same as online one for 10% with only exclusion being open box and max discount of $10K. I will be getting $120 in reward zone coupons next month just in time for X-Mas.

Like I said in other post I never gotten this lucky at Best Buy. Most of the time they mail me 1 coupon a month. Never hit 4 Best Buy promo's in 10 days in my life also I guess if the CS gal wanted to be nasty she could have taken away my triple point coupon I used except she was nice and told me she was going to apply the 12% off coupon as a price match and not a coupon as their system only allows 1 coupon to be used per reciept. Myrewardzone.com still shows my tripple points as pending so I have no reason to think the gal lied to me.

I would prefer the Online Store. Reason: you would get a virgin machine which was built to order by guys assembling it with proper precautionary measures. I friend of mine who bought it from an Apple Store just recently had to find fingerprints on the LCD screen, because he got a stock machine upgraded to more RAM! The stores usually do not offer much of a rebate and if it is often by offering more or less useless accessories at a special price (making you spend more money than you actually planned). That's my point of view, others my have another point of view.

Although I have made mistakes in posts, I did check my facts before I posted, as you can also. At the bottom of www.apple.com is a pull down menu entitled Visit an Apple Store. At the bottom of the menu are International Apple Stores. There are 3 nations listed as having Apple Stores; Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan.
So to me, as far as Apple Computer is concerned, there do not appear to be any Apple Stores in Australia. So any stores that are there are resellers.

Does it say Apple Store or does it say Apple Centre? The Apple Centre locations are an Apple reseller in Australia owned by a company called Next Byte. From the photos of their stores on their website, the stores are archtectually very similar in their interior design to the Apple Stores.
The Apple Stores in the the USA, Canada, the UK and Japan are owned and operated by Apple Computer and staffed by Apple employees.
We have two stores here in Monterrey, Mexico that only sell Macs and other Apple products, but they are not owned or operated by Apple Computer.

My experience having just bought a machine from the online apple store that was classified as DOA was that the local apple store (San Francisco) would have nothing to do with the machine other than confirm the problem.

I was told that if I had bought from a local store I could return the DOA computer to a store, but the online store is a completely different entity and they would not accept a machine that had been purchased from apple's online store.

Your milage may vary, but that was my experience. I am now in the frustrating situation of having a second faulty machine and having to go through apples incredibly onerous return / replacement procedures a second time.

That's odd. My Apple-store just checks the serial #, to see if AppleCare is active, they fix the problem and I'm on my way...

A person has 14 days starting on the day of delivery to accept or reject a Mac purchased from the online Apple Store. If the Mac is DOA and they reject it and want a refund or to have it replaced they cannot do that through an Apple Store, they must work directly with Apple Computer. That is a different situation that having a Mac repaired under warranty by a Certified Apple Technician, which in your case is an actual nearby Apple Store.

I think you misunderstood my statement. If you buy an IMac from Best Buy or any other of the above mentioned dealers and it breaks in the first 30 days you got 2 choices for service. Have the retailer you purchased it from exchange it for a new one or take your broken computer to the Apple store and have it repaired. The choice is your because all the above named retailers offer a no question asked return policy with no restocking fee for 30 days except for Compusa who will only exchange it for same model if it breaks in the first 30 days.

Just like if you bought an IMac from Apple store and it broke in the first 14 days(Apple exchange policy is 14 days vs 30 for most major retailers) you would have same 2 choices of having the Apple store replace it for a new one or repair it.

The only place that will replace your computer is the place you bought it from but Apple store will repair any Apple computer purchased from any authorized dealer. In other-words if you bought your IMac from Frys would you expect Best Buy to exchange your broken one for a new one? Apple stores and Apple.com are run as 2 separate companies and have nothing to do with each other. The fact both are owned by Apple Computer is really irrelevant

It just happens to be that the Apple Stores are official service centers for all Apple computers and service center repair computers they don't exchange them for new ones in general unless authorized by Apple computers to do so.

You are lucky out there in CA. No Apple in Best Buy in Michigan or Ohio. At least not the ones I have been to. The adds are definatley different to. Must be why they want ZIP code.