Yoobee ups ante in ‘one stop shop’ plan

Yoobee has partnered up with 2degrees to offer a ‘one-stop shop’ for mobile solutions for Apple users – and enable customers to put mobile rebates towards buying new Apple products.

The deal is a continuation of Yoobee’s push to be a ‘solution provider’ rather than purely a retailer, under new owners IT services provider Logical Systems.

Daven Naidu, Yoobee chief executive, says the service enables Yoobee buyers of Apple’s networked products to sign up for 2degrees’ voice and data plans on the spot, rather than send customers elsewhere.

But Naidu says a significant benefit comes in the ability for hardware rebates – offered with many longer-term mobile contract – to be used for products such as iPads and MacBooks, rather than just handsets.

“If you qualify for a hardware rebate, you don’t have to use it on a handset, which is quite significant for customers, and helps us with Apple sales,” Naidu says.

“If you’re a commercial customer and you have, say 15 connections, you could accumulate $5000-$6000 in rebates that can be used to purchase hardware for the business.”

Naidu says he hopes the incentive of being able to put rebates towards a new iPad or other Apple device will provide a lure for some of the many 2degrees customers currently on prepay contract.

“A lot are probably on prepay and there’s been no real incentive to go to a contract, but if you are offering more than handsets, it might make more sense to move to contract.

Naidu says he has no plans to offer similar services with other telcos at this point.

Nationwide rollout of the service begins today. Naidu says a number of such offers will be rolled out in the coming months.