Apple (AAPL) has announced plans to sell refurbished products on its Chinese official website at discounted prices, and these products include the iMac and iPod product lines.

Apple's iMac, whose suggested retail price is about CNY10,698, is sold at a 12% reduction for CNY9,418 on the website. Apple's iPod products sold on the website include iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano and both of the two products are 22% off the suggested retail prices. A one gigabyte capacity iPod Shuffle with suggested retail price of CNY398 is sold at CNY308 on the website; iPod Shuffles with two gigabytes of capacity with suggested retail price of CNY568 are going for CNY438; and the iPod Nano, with suggested retail price of CNY1,128, is CNY878.

Most of these refurbished products were previously sold and then returned, but the warranty policy for these refurbished products is the same as that of the new ones.

Apple China told local media that before being put on the shelf at their stores, these products have undergone a strict renovation process to meet the quality standards of Apple, which some Apple product owners will say is more an emphasis on form than durability. Apple offers a one-year warranty period for these refurbished products and customers can choose to buy Apple's AppleCare warranty plan to prolong the period to up to three years for iMac and two years for iPod and Apple TV.

Apple says every approved refurbished product has undergone overall tests and the defective parts are changed after the tests. In addition, these products are cleaned, re-packed with new instructions and provided with relevant operating software. Every refurbished product will have a new serial number and receive a final quality test before being sold.