APEX in bankruptcy

[dean_martin]

I ran into one of the neighborhood kids who works at a big box store warehouse. He said he spent all day loading APEX tvs and dvdps to send back because APEX is in bankruptcy.

It should be a bargain hunter's field day for stock already on shelves.



p.s. - my only experience with APEX was not very good. I bought my son a cheap dvdp for his room and right out of the box it didn't work. (ymmv)

[Woochifer]

Apex had their day in the sun as one of the most visible sellers of bottomfeeder DVD players and TVs. They made their reputation by pushing down the price points on DVD players, but all they really did was package and resell their products. As a company, they did not really offer a lot to customers aside from a cheap component. Everything that they sold was manufactured by outsourcing with minimal original design work, and their customer support was also outsourced. Everyone I know who bought something from Apex had a problem develop.

Apex's chairman was arrested in China last year for fraud, and it's not like the company had huge resources and a support infrastructure available to keep their products in the spotlight. For one thing they did no marketing, and maintained a skeletal staff of 20 people to handle customer support inquiries -- this for a company that at one time had $1 billion+ in annual revenues and was the second or third biggest selling DVD player brand.

Problem with their approach is that so many other companies started distributing cheap DVD players and TVs, and they all pretty much all contracted with the same outsource manufacturers. Hard to maintain a brand identity with this business model because the outsource manufacturers in China would come and go with regularity (last year, I read that 90% of China's DVD player manufacturers from two years earlier had gone out of business), and there's no marketing or customer support to build customer loyalty. It's more like a one-and-done relationship with the customers, and if this bankruptcy is true, then Apex is done. Once brand name companies like Toshiba and Panasonic with better product quality and customer support started selling their DVD players for less than $80, then Apex's $50 DVD players didn't look all that special anymore.

Some previous threads about Apex ...

Woodman, info on no-name brand TVs.

Help in purchasing new DVD player? Name brand vs no names?

[GMichael]

I bought an Apex 32" TV 2 years ago. Picked it up at CC for $200.00. Not a bad price but the quality of the picture is low. And I mean loooooow! Talk about grainy.

[thekid]

Have to agree with most of the comments posted.
I have a Apex 800 DVD player that is still holding up well after 4 years the Karoke feature never worked but that is probably good thing.I bought an 1100 from Walmart for about $40 and it barely lasted a year. As the market came done they pretty much disappeared. The only stores I regularly saw their DVD players in was Walmart and Sam's Club. Based on their downward slide I think it would still be a risk even to buy something even at close out prices.

[texlle]

That sucks. Apex TV's are surprisingly nice. In build and picture quality.

[bjornb17]

my girlfriend has an APEX tv that is decent for the money paid. Much better than RCA and other companies at that price point.

However, when i worked at circuit city, i had to deal with probably about a 25% return rate on apex products.

[GMichael]

my girlfriend has an APEX tv that is decent for the money paid. Much better than RCA and other companies at that price point.

However, when i worked at circuit city, i had to deal with probably about a 25% return rate on apex products.

bjornb17,

How are you? Haven't seen much of you lately and was begining to worry.

[Smokey]

That sucks. Apex TV's are surprisingly nice. In build and picture quality.

Not really.

Built quality left alot to be desired (the connectors on the back looks like were about to fall out), and picture quality was not too far behind. I tried one of their TVs, and it took me less than a minutes to decide to take it back. The picture quality was that awfull

[Woochifer]

my girlfriend has an APEX tv that is decent for the money paid. Much better than RCA and other companies at that price point.

However, when i worked at circuit city, i had to deal with probably about a 25% return rate on apex products.

I think that pretty much illustrates the problems with Apex's business model as more of a virtual company, where all of the design work and manufacturing gets outsourced, and these outsource partners change constantly -- whether it's Apex shopping for a cheaper supplier or the outsource manufacturers going out of business. A couple of TVs sharing the Apex nameplate might have absolutely nothing else in common -- completely different design underneath, different part suppliers, different manufacturers, etc.

[GMichael]

I think that pretty much illustrates the problems with Apex's business model as more of a virtual company, where all of the design work and manufacturing gets outsourced, and these outsource partners change constantly -- whether it's Apex shopping for a cheaper supplier or the outsource manufacturers going out of business. A couple of TVs sharing the Apex nameplate might have absolutely nothing else in common -- completely different design underneath, different part suppliers, different manufacturers, etc.

So that would make them the AMC of the video world?