Apple (AAPL) is betting that its customers, who pay premium prices for its products because they consider them to be high quality, appreciate a Black Friday bargain like everyone else.
The maker of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac has sent tongues wagging by announcing in an ad on its website that its offering deals on the unofficial start of the holiday season. However, in keeping with Apple’s penchant for secrecy, the company won’t disclose the deals until Friday.
“Our one-day shopping event will be here before you know it,” the ad says.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been ambivalent about Black Friday in the past, offering “modest” product discounts along with gift cards, according to MacWorld, the website that covers Apple products and software. The tech bellwether skipped the holiday last year, the site says. A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment.
Apple, which has posted three consecutive quarters of year-over-year sales declines, has decided it wanted to get in on the Black Friday action itself. The company even has an online holiday gift guide to help customers find the “perfect gift. Retailers have used Apple products as “doorbusters” for years to drive holiday traffic to their store
According to a Prosper Analytics survey conducted for the National Retail Federation (NRF), 137.4 million Americans plan to or are considering shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend. The trade association says Black Friday is still the most popular day to shop for consumers of all ages, though some analysts dispute this characterization.
Holiday spending overall is expected to jump 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion, which is above the seven-year average gain of 3.4 percent since the economy began recovering from the recession in 2009, according to the NRF.
