Apple to slash prices by up to 15% on Black Friday?
Could match resellers to lure cash-strapped US customers
Apple is holding a one-day sale for turkey-tired customers in the US on Black Friday, traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Some reports have suggested that the company could be slashing prices by 15 per cent to lure cash-strapped Americans to buy their goods tomorrow.
Black Friday comes the day after Thanksgiving and marks the start of the holiday shopping season in the US. This year the sluggish economy is forcing many vendors to offer tasty discounts to customers who are increasingly shy of parting with their cash.
Shoppers are voting with their feet, choosing to stay away from electronic goods and cutting back on non-essential purchases as the recession starts to bite.
Apple, characteristically, isn’t actually saying much about tomorrow’s sale blitz.
Instead it’s carrying a simple announcement on its website saying that the online store is holding a “one-day-only holiday shopping event. You’ll find dozens of great iPod, iPhone, and Mac gift ideas.”
But the fact that Apple is slashing prices in-store is indicative of how bad the retail market has become in recent weeks. As credit has dried up many computer outlets such as Best Buy and Amazon have been forced to offer massive discounts in an effort to keep selling IT gear in these economically gloomy times. ®
COMMENTS
VAT..
If you read their statement about the VAT adjustment, they say that the price quoted shows VAT at 17.5% vat, the current rate.. however, because the item won't be built/despatched until at least Monday 1st December, the final invoice will actually show 15% VAT.. so they ARE passing the savings on to you at the time of charging your card.
So there... that's your bus fare home as well.
Why So Critical
Apple are offering massive savings, it doesn't take much surfing of their site to find that they are offering upto 22% off some items. That's right - you can get some in-ear headphones for your iPhone for for only £54 (normally £70).
@Dapprman, most of the discounts might only be 3-6% but it is still a lot more than the 2.1% UK.gov are offering.
Apple's US discounts are a bit better, but not much.
@Andrew Waterworth - "Discounts not all that great. In fact, pretty piddling. Still bigger than any forthcoming VAT saving though (when you look at that particular no-trick pony, you discover that it's worth the square root of bugger all unless you're buying something in the "stonkingly expensive, but still VAT-chargeable" category.)"
Indeed, if you were to buy a fully-spec'ed top of the range Mac Pro on Monday you could save a couple of hundred quid in VAT - of course you'd have to spend about £12,000 first - and about £6,000 of that would be on RAM that's only worth about £1,500.
@Robert Moore
"This ia as likely as Apple releasing a PC version of OS/X"
I thought modern Apple computers are a PC hardware wise.
As expected
Discounts not all that great. In fact, pretty piddling. Still bigger than any forthcoming VAT saving though (when you look at that particular no-trick pony, you discover that it's worth the square root of bugger all unless you're buying something in the "stonkingly expensive, but still VAT-chargeable" category.)
