Question: Would it be possible to establish a partner/reseller/dealer/distributor program to sell Framework laptops?

Would it be possible to establish a partner/reseller/dealer/distributor program to sell Framework laptops? This is how large companies such as Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Acer etc sell their products worldwide especially in the global south without having offices, freight forwarding or dealing with governments nor customs worldwide.

Those tasks are left to local stores, which buy directly from the manufacturer like Apple or Framework, then resell it locally for profits. This would significantly reduce the need for freight forwarding (it would not eliminate it due to the reseller’s profit margin, unless it’s baked onto the sales price worldwide which wouldn’t be attractive for stores) and would allow for local warranty and support without the overhead of having Framework deal with local customs and regulations nor establishing local offices. It would allow Framework to expand its reach more rapidly due to lower overhead

There is high demand for high performance Unix-like machines among developers and data visualization users in many third world/global south countries that are underserved by these international companies due to significant challenges they have to face to directly sell locally, so they don’t and instead use dealer programs.

Those users currently buy Mac since it’s Unix-like like Linux, or stay on Windows due to the lack of a dealer program for Linux laptops because a dealer program allows them to physically see the machine in a store before purchase and thus increases the size of the new and thus the local used market for the machine. Due to the lack of a dealer program they choose Mac because it’s very close to Linux and both are Unix-like.

1 Like

I doubt Framework is interested in that. It’s another company they would need to share margin with and they’ve previously explicitly said they weren’t interested in retail channels.

Could Framework move into retail? Of course they could but I don’t think they will.

it’s not the global south* but micro center, a store in the US, is distributing them now, so that’s a good sign

ngl the AI slop engorging on the entirety of the world’s ram and storage is stopping u from getting computers way more than any distribution issues

*this term is sus AF lmao. like how are russia and israel in the “global north”… it can’t be a healthy thing to use this term