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As the United States gets ready for its upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, retail organizations are gearing up for an annual holiday of their own: Black Friday.
This year, though, they face a difficult economic climate, and many consumers may be especially tight with their cash. Some retailers -- especially those that sell consumer electronics -- are expected to cut prices even deeper than usual.
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has not traditionally ignored the Black Friday bonanza completely, though its retail sales are generally more conservative than those of other electronics sellers. Plans usually involve both its online store and brick-and-mortar retail stores. Typical discounts have been in the US$100 range for iMacs and notebooks and between around $10 and $30 for iPods.
Could this year be different?
Call for Aggression
Apple did not respond to a MacNewsWorld inquiry about the company's Black Friday sales plans. However, Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes has reportedly predicted that Apple may be much more aggressive with its Black Friday sale than in years past.
In a research report to clients obtained by AppleInsider, Reitzes apparently not only predicts deeper than normal discounts, but also called upon Apple to "get more price aggressive in every product" for its traditional one-day sale. He also noted that Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) all plan to offer $299 notebooks during their sales.
Prediction or Hope?
"Usually the successful Black Friday sales [by any retailer] are very, very deep discounts on high-velocity, enticing products. And Apple usually has pretty fixed pricing, and if they do discount something, it's usually a systemic price discount. It's not like they just give $10 off an iPhone or a $500 rebate off of a Mac. They haven't historically done [deep discounts], so I would be surprised if they do this Thanksgiving," Sucharita Mulpuru, a principal retail analyst for Forrester, told MacNewsWorld.
"You rarely see Apple doing any kind of discounting, and when they do, there's the backlash," she added. For example, when Apple first dropped the price of its popular iPhone, many users who'd bought their phones in the previous few weeks were furious. The fuss prompted Apple to offer a $100 credit for Apple purchases.
No Sinking Ship
Plus, Mulpuru pointed out, Apple is already way ahead of most financial estimates. Why would a company that's doing well in a tough economy resort to deep discounts?
"If there's any product that in this economy consumers will buy, it's the iPhone. There's not really anything else out that consumers really need to have this holiday season," Mulpuru said. However, "if they were to discount, it would be very good for unit sales.
"I understand some of their Mac sales are a little softer than they would like -- maybe that's a way to move some of those products," she added.
With Apple's most recent introduction of LED-backlit displays in its MacBooks -- and no such updates apparently coming to the company's iMac line this holiday season -- one possibility is that Apple will introduce a new line of iMacs in early 2009, perhaps at Macworld in January. Steep discounting could help clear out any extra inventory, if any exists, though the exact amount of inventory is anyone guess.
"Any discounting of Apple products, because Apple is such a desirable brand, is going to drive sales. I would argue they don't need to, though," Mulpuru noted.
