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Playing The Sale Game (6/10/99)
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Not that this comes as any particular surprise, but Sears is playing the classic retail game when it comes to pricing the iMac. You know the one; jack up the "regular price" of an item, so you can then offer a lower "special sale price" that, coincidentally, just happens to be the regular price everywhere else. So while the iMac debuted at Sears sporting a $1299 price tag, MacCentral reports that, for the official rollout this Sunday, Sears will indeed be lowering the iMac's price to the spectacular level of $1199! That's a fantastic 8% savings... off their regular 108% price. Hee hee, we love this stuff...
Not that Sears doesn't have anything to offer, mind you-- we are very glad to see them on board the iMac bandwagon. With 844 stores nationwide, including several in hard-to-reach places, the Sears deal offers a level of coverage few other retail chains can match. Better still, it means that the average consumer can now buy an iMac at that temple of reckless spending known as The Mall. And then there's the issue of Sears' own financing program: customers who buy an iMac using their Sears charge card reap the benefits of 0% interest through January of 2000. So yeah, there are definitely some serious benefits to having Sears on Apple's side, even if it means we have to watch hokey little stunts like the "raise the price and then put it on sale" game. Heck, at least it's entertaining, right?
In our opinion, the "special sale price" scam, while hovering right up there, isn't the top of the heap when it comes to sleazy retail tricks; that honor goes to the perennial "going out of business sale." (The two often go hand in hand.) Pretty much everyone knows of at least one store that's had signs saying "Going Out Of Business-- Everything Must Go!!!" on display for a ridiculously long time. There was a rug store in the Boston area who seemed to have been going out of business for a good solid four years at least, before somebody in authority finally ordered them to stop the sale or close their doors. It was a sad, sad day when that sale ended... Now where will we buy our rich oriental rugs at up to 70% off?
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SceneLink (1595)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 6/10/99 episode: June 10, 1999: The reason for the $1299 Sears iMac comes clear, as the phenomenal "sale price" of $1199 is revealed. Meanwhile, the consumer portable may have to share the Macworld Expo spotlight with another star, and "Pirates of Silicon Valley" is rapidly approaching-- gear up by reading the early reviews...
Other scenes from that episode: 1596: Two Stars, No Waiting (6/10/99) As usual, Apple Insider's got the fun dirt, though of course we couldn't even begin to speculate about whether or not it's really true. They've finally shed some light on the cryptic reference to a "sidekick" that popped up in their latest report on the upcoming consumer portable, virtually guaranteed for a Macworld Expo introduction next month... 1597: Countdown to Pirates (6/10/99) There's only just over a week to go before TNT debuts its long-awaited Steve Jobs/Bill Gates biopic, "The Pirates of Silicon Valley," and the AtAT staff is getting restless. Sure, we've been through the web site and taken the Silicon Quiz, played the little Shockwave versions of all those classic games like "Pong" and "Breakout" (ah, the misspent hours of our lost youth...), etc., but we're just itching for the actual televisual experience-- we're still kicking ourselves for sleeping instead of channel-surfing a couple of weeks ago when TNT aired it unannounced and in the middle of the night so it could qualify for the Emmys. So we're grateful that MacWEEK posted a fairly in-depth review of the movie, which discusses lots of what happens on-screen...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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