Apple iPhone Gets Apple Shop

The hype surrounding the release of the new Apple iPhone has been intensifying up to the official product launch last week in London where is was confirmed that the iPhone will go on sale to the UK market on November 9th 2007.UK network operators and large independent retailers have all been in the process of trying to negotiate exclusive deals with the electronic manufacturer to earn the right to sell the product but the clear winner was announced at the presentation as being the UK network O2. Considering the current climate in the UK mobile phone industry this decision is likely to hurt many smaller retailers who have recently experienced with O2 over commission payments and long term agreements.The network has continually been cutting back on the amount of commission they have been paying for new connections from independent dealers to the point that some retailers have had to remove all O2 products from their shelves as they could no longer make any form of profit margin at the point of sale. This has also effected the growing number of online retailers who experience far more competition than those dealers situated in the high street, the online marketplace covers a national audience so rather than just competing with a shop around the corner dealers are having to research thousands of deals from hundreds of websites in order to stay competitive.In the run up to the exclusive sales channel being announced some networks who were involved in negotiations with Apple went as far as to force some websites who dealt with them to remove all iPhone product pages until the deal was done, this proves how seriously the bidders were on capturing the exclusive deal with the manufacturer.