POSA - Point of Sale Activation

EDS - I'm not sure what that stands for.

But, POSA software (like Nortons, MS Office) you take a card to the counter, they take your money and activate the software. You take the till receipt home, follow the instructions to download your software and enter the code from the receipt to activate it.

Stores don't have to buy a physical copy and keep it in stock. They don't have to worry about shrinkage and they don't have to pay the vendor for it until it is sold.

@trig42 ... ahh, of course.

Is there any benefit to that sort of purchase as opposed to buying direct from company/buying online and getting an activation code by email?

They're exactly the same.

The other good thing for retailers is if there is a price change, they haven't 'bought' the stock, so there is no price protection hassles.

Rickles:

 

@trig42 ... ahh, of course.

 

Is there any benefit to that sort of purchase as opposed to buying direct from company/buying online and getting an activation code by email?

 

For places selling hardware is allows an instant up sell-  and means the store  can likely get some form of 'ticket clip" on the way through. 

Also having a sales assistant say "do you want MS 365 etc) for $150/year when you are shelling out $1000s is an more attractive value proposition, 

Once you are back home, you've spent you $1000s on hardware, its a larger psychological jump to shell out another $150 for 365

Its all marketing...

Got it .. thanks.

Rickles:

 

@trig42 ... ahh, of course.

 

Is there any benefit to that sort of purchase as opposed to buying direct from company/buying online and getting an activation code by email?

 

None for the user, but retailers love them because they are essentially on consignment so they are not out any cost per item as the hangtags are provided free and they are only invoiced when they sell a code.

Scammers love it as they can get mules to buy codes and then put them into resale sites, but thats mainly only going to happen on games, not on boring crap like anti virus software.

Software vendors like it, because it means they are one more step away from any chargebacks when the scammers buy the codes to resell.

trig42:

 

EDS - I'm not sure what that stands for.

 

Electronic Data Systems - which was bought by HP, then DXC

Are you sure its EDS, not ESD?  (Electronic Software Distribution) ?

@wellgarry ... ummm, errr ... 😁

You are right.