Acer has raised the price of all its products by 25 per cent as it feels the impact of the economic down turn and the cheap Aussie dollar.

This increase will affect its channel, distribution and retail segments.

Acer product marketing division director, Bert Noah, said it could not afford to sell stock at old prices.

“One of the things that channel partners have to do now is really start educating customers in relation to price rises,” he said. “We announced it to our partners about two weeks ago, that we’re going for a price increase and we’re giving them a grace period with all the stock that we have now will be based on the old exchange rate. It could be a stimulus to get their customers to buy now, based on the fact that there’s a buffer of stock in the channel.”

Goods that are hitting the shores from last week onwards will be based on the new exchange rate. Noah estimated towards the end of this month all products will be under the new pricing.

“I believe we’re being conservative with our increase of 25 per cent, and it will impact every product that’s imported whether its software or hardware,” he said. “The only thing partners can control is their own services, anything they acquire in goods will go up in price.”

Noah added that Acer tried to cushion the first increase and the reason they waited till to do this till now was in relation to the supply chain impact.

“For us to get goods from our factory, it takes anywhere between 6-8 weeks,” he said. “The goods that are now coming in are at a horrible exchange rate, and we can’t afford to sell it to our customers at the old prices.”

He estimated the vendor’s costs have increased by 54 per cent in the past five months and warned if the US dollar continued to slide, it would have to raise prices again.

“It’s a reality, this is not an opportunity for us to get more profit, it’s not that issue at all,” he said.

“Our concern is that the whole supply chain market, our channel partners, distributors and users are not planning for this.”

Noah said it was going to add more value for resellers around software bundles and warranty services.

“This is what I really fear that the channel in general is not considering this and it’s something that’s in our face and they have to start it now,” he said. “We’re the first ones to come out with this and I’m amazed why other vendor’s haven’t done this.”