“To celebrate the grand opening of Apple Computer’s new Union Square store in San Francisco, 200 shoppers will be given a dubious opportunity — spend $250 for the chance to win a new iPod mini,” Leander Kahney reports for Wired News.
[MacDailyNews Note: What’s “dubious” to Leander could easily be “fun” or “interesting” to others. To state the obvious: $250 is pocket change to some, while to others it represents a long period of savings; this particular “lucky bag” concept is for the former, not the latter. For the Grand Opening, before the curious, downtrodden, and besieged-by-the-“virus o’ the day” Wintellites begin to balance out the store’s traffic, we are, after all, talking Mac users here, not eMachines-buyers.]
“On Saturday morning, the first few hundred people through the door will have a chance to buy a $250 ‘lucky bag,’ which may or may not contain one of the company’s popular, just-released miniature music players,” Kahney reports. “Lucky bags are a shopping craze imported from Japan where, on New Year’s Day, many stores offer these bags full of surprise items, explained Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, during a press tour of the store Thursday.”
Kahney reports, “He said Apple sold them during the recent grand opening of its Tokyo store, and the concept proved so popular the company decided to bring the idea to San Francisco. Priced at $250, nearly the same price as the iPod mini itself, the lucky bags contain seven or eight items worth a total of $600 to $1,000, Johnson said. ‘We’ve got a really popular product that sells for $249,’ he said, referring to the new music player, which went on sale last weekend. ‘So some of them might have a nice surprise.'”
Full article here.
Well said MDN. I know I could scrape together $250 to buy one if I were going to be in SF for the opening. Anyone that wouldn’t when you’re going to get $600-1000 worth of assorted goodies in return needs to have their heads examined to see if they have anything left up there! Of course, we are talking about a Windows user here (Kahney) obviously, so I think that alone proves there isn’t too much going on up there…
I hope this goes well and they try it at the new NYC store when it opens. My wife and I saw this article last night and started thinking about how early to show up with the lawn chairs…
I wonder what the other items in the bag are? What was given away in Tokyo?
You are wrong, guys: Kahney reports regularly about the mac, and he’s kind of a macaddict.
Nevertheless he missed the point on the “lucky bags”.
It seems to me that you have a chance to get one of the lucky bags–a bag with $600-1000 in it. Most bags will have practically nothing in them. It’s like a raffle.
Any Tokyo people out there who can clarify this?
I don’t know what the Japan lucky bags contained, but I doubt that Apple risks in the USofA to fill these bags with items less than $250 of value.
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Imagine the bad press “…paid 250 for a bag with a shirt and a pencil…”
Question is, will the buyers be happy with another volume of Panther, another volume of iLife and other (Software) items they already own ?
Anyway, the worst case will be a flood of Apple products on ebay and forums full of “trade x for y” offers
Bring this special to Denver and I’ll be there with my $250!!!
Knowing my luck I’d get a copy of Virtual PC with XP Pro.
I plan on being there. Anyone else? Just outta curiosity, anyone planning on sleeping outside overnight? Crazy…
luckybag bring back many many fun memory. i buy five (5) lyckbag if sanfrancisco i’m “in neighborhood”.
hair-hole extended.
take//
I HATE THAT I CAN NOT PARTICIPATE
EVERYONE ELSE GETS COOL STUFF – EVEN THOUGH MY CITY IS THE BEST PLACE TO LIVE IN NA.
:^p APPLE
Lots of software and probably at least one Apple product from the following:
FCE, iLife04, iPod, iSight
I can see a lot of games and fun stuff being in there: Halo, UT2004, THPS 4
I don’t think it’s a raffle. You buy a bag for $250 without knowing what’s inside them. That is it. When you total the MSRP of the items inside, it comes out between $600-1000. You are guaranteed to win based on value, but you may lose based on not getting what you want/need. You may win an inkjet cartridge incompatible with your printer, for example. Of course, you can sell them but probably at reduced price and it’s a hassle. That is why it is called a lucky bag.
Do you feel lucky, punk? Make my day!
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Although I have never bought a Lucky Bag myself they are really popular over here in Japan and from what I have heard of them artric got it right. You always have goods with a value of what you paid for them at the very least and often worth much more. The question is whether you get something you want/need. If you get really lucky you get something worth much more than you paid for it, that you really wanted and that is way cool.
This also gives stores a chance to off load items they still have unsold stock of. If I was there I would buy one for sure and if I didn’t get something I wanted, I would walk around to other lucky baggers and see if I could trade. As a last resort you could always post it on eBay too I suppose.
I stand corrected. Too bad I’m not in S.F.
You know, the editor’s note is just wrong-headed and elitist for no good reason. I know plenty of people who had to scrape together money to purchase their Mac. I own a Powerbook myself, but I wouldn’t consider $250 chump change.
This lucky bag business would be cool, but the thing is that $600-1000 doesn’t get you much at the Apple store.
Hey–give the guys in Cupertino a break—I mean they lost more market share (read the Forbes Article) and now all they want to do is have a grab bag! Their brilliant!
John, are you new here? The “editors” note is quite typical. Beats me how the supposedly well to do intelligentsia hereabouts constantly berate the masses, somewhat as if they retain some innate sense of inferiority. Just some armchair psychology, that, and I understand that mac lovers are not able to share their love much except virtually, so lets just put up with it.
It would be nice to find out what is in the losing lucky bags. MSRP can be a bitch.
eMachines buyers are ignorant cheap ‘tards. Facts are tough to read in print sometimes. Tough.
Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings.
Someone, anyone, please explain “takemi from tokyo’s” statement above:
“hair-hole extended.”
I am laughing my ass off thinking of possibile definitions.
It’s better than “All your base are belong to us!”
In terms of education and affluence influencing what platform you use, the Nielson stats are easy to misinterpret. The report says, as your link mentions, that mac users tend to be better educated and make more money. It is a well known fact that income tends to increase with education. Macs tend to be considerably more expensive than their pc competitors in each market segement. This means that people with very little education and little income will find macs much less attainable than, for instance, a $400 emachine. The poor are in large part excluded from the mac owner club.
Considering this, you can look to the middle and upper classes and ask what machines they buy. The percentage of mac ownership does increase considerably, but it remains a small minority. Most interestingly, there is still a minority of mac owners among the most highly educated portion of the population. I don’t have the stats with me, but if memory serves its something like 35-40% of PhD holders use macs. This is huge, compared to the whole population, but it is still a minority.
Now lets wonder what would happen to the Nielson statistics if Apple started charging $15,000 per machine. I know that I could no longer afford one, regardless of how powerful or beautiful Apple made it. Most other mac users would also be excluded from the club. The only people left who could afford a mac would be those with very large incomes. Once again, these people tend to have much higher than average levels of education. The net effect: by charging more than any other computer manufacturer, Apple manages to exclude those who do not have money and education.
“Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts.”
Smart: Buying computers that developers refuse to write code on.
Smart: Insisting your 1 Ghz. CPU is faster than a 3 Ghz.
Smart: Paying more, and getting less just to placate your desperate need to feel elite because you are so damn insecure.
Suspend my Disbelief,
All from your point of view my friend… Have you not considered:
“Buying computers that developers refuse to write code on”
This is totally meaningless, seeing as how every bit of software I use on my Mac for real business or pleasure use is written by someone.
“Insisting your 1 Ghz. CPU is faster than a 3 Ghz”
Clock Speed is relative and cannot be compared amongst different chips and computers with a wide range of different Ram and BUS configurations etc. Besides my mac is fast enough for me and what I need it to do. Perhaps you are feeling insecure about it ?
“Paying more, and getting less just to placate your desperate need to feel elite because you are so damn insecure.”
Perhaps you are insecure because you are feeling a little sheep like, because of your need to buy what everyone else is buying ?
Paying More ??
My mac cost less than most comparable pc’s and is still working today. As for a need to feel elite, I am happy and that’s all that matters to me.
Oh, and by the way, NO VIRUSES…
halfy, which mac do you have that “cost less than most comparable pc’s”?
“Oh, and by the way, NO VIRUSES”
Really? I remember cleaning viruses off Macs way back in in ’91, not to mention in recent times – *fewer viruses* yes, “no viruses” is misleading. You’re making our “better educated” attribute look pretty silly with your statement. A PC user who is responsible (and keeps their OS current), with up-to-date AV is safe (and I speak from 15+ years experience on both platforms, thank you).