Best Buy cuts prices on Apple's Mac line for 4-day sale

[AppleInsider]

Looking to get a jump-start on the holiday shopping season, Best Buy is working with Apple to host a 4-day only sale that offers instant discounts across the entire Mac product line, including $100 - $150 off the latest MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro notebooks, and $50 - $150 off Mac minis, iMacs, and Mac Pros.

The specialty electronics reseller is said to have brought in "huge stock" over the weekend to support the promotion, which runs through Wednesday evening, and will be receiving additional stock sometime later today. In addition, Apple employees will be on hand at most Best Buy locations to interact with customers and help seal the deal.

The sale is also in effect through Best Buy online. In both cases, the retailer is offering no interest financing for 18 months. Anyone who purchases an Apple notebook will also qualify for two additional promotions, one which offers $39 - $70 off select printers, and another that offers 15% - 20% off notebook accessories.

Among the Mac offerings in stock and on sale are the following (prices after discount in parenthesis):

$100 off 2.0GHz Unibody MacBook ($1199.99)
$150 off 2.4GHz Unibody MacBook ($1449.99)
$100 off 2.1GHz White MacBook ($899.99)
$100 off 2.4GHz Unibody MacBook Pro ($1899.99)
$100 off 2.53GHz Unibody MacBook Pro ($2399.99)
$100 off 2.5GHz Aluminum 17-inch MacBook Pro ($2699.99)
$150 off 1.6GHz NVIDIA-baed MacBook Air ($1649.99)
$150 off 1.86GHz NVIDIA-baed MacBook Air ($2349.99)
$100 off 2.4GHz 20-inch iMac ($1099.99)
$100 off 2.66GHz 20-inch iMac ($1399.99)
$150 off 2.8GHz 24-inch iMac ($1649.99)
$50 off 1.83GHz Mac mini ($549.00)
$50 off 2.0GHz Mac mini ($749.00)
$150 off 2.8GH Mac Pro ($2649.99)



Best Buy is also offering the original 1.6GHz MacBook Air for $1299.

Update: According to one reader, some Apple retail stores may be willing to price-match Best Buy for the next three days. "If you bring in a flyer or ad to an Apple Store, they will match the price after getting it approved through the manager," the reader said. Readers may be best suited to call their local Apple retail store ahead of time to inquire about their price-matching policies.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[bigmc6000]

Honestly, I can't say that Apple's "slashing" of prices are anything short of a joke. I mean, I just can't see 1199 being that much more affordable than 1299. When we see prices of TV's being dropped like 30-40% and apple drops about 5% while we all know they are making 30% plus on it I just don't get the big draw... You want to sell a massive # of Macs in a few days? Do what the other guys do and have a Black Friday sale on about 50 units which'll get people in the door and when you sell out you can convince them to buy a full priced unit instead

[satchmo]

Slashes? More like 'trims'.
$100 off a $2400 laptop is not going to be much of an incentive other than to those who had planned to buy one.

[TheMadMilkman]

Originally Posted by bigmc6000

Honestly, I can't say that Apple's "slashing" of prices are anything short of a joke. I mean, I just can't see 1199 being that much more affordable than 1299. When we see prices of TV's being dropped like 30-40% and apple drops about 5% while we all know they are making 30% plus on it I just don't get the big draw... You want to sell a massive # of Macs in a few days? Do what the other guys do and have a Black Friday sale on about 50 units which'll get people in the door and when you sell out you can convince them to buy a full priced unit instead

Having worked retail myself, you would be very surprised how little of a price break is needed to grab people's interest. 32" TV for under $200? Did you read the pre-sale price, which was only $220? Yet people will wait in line and fight over saving a measly $20 on a crappy TV.

[Rot'nApple]

Originally Posted by bigmc6000

Honestly, I can't say that Apple's "slashing" of prices are anything short of a joke. I mean, I just can't see 1199 being that much more affordable than 1299. When we see prices of TV's being dropped like 30-40% and apple drops about 5% while we all know they are making 30% plus on it I just don't get the big draw... You want to sell a massive # of Macs in a few days? Do what the other guys do and have a Black Friday sale on about 50 units which'll get people in the door and when you sell out you can convince them to buy a full priced unit instead

$1299.00 to $1199.00 is more like 11.55% price break and hey, this is Apple, and "Price Breaks" of any kind are rare outside of events like this. So take 'em when you can get 'em.

At least these machines are new (hopefully) versus the 13%, 15%, 17%, or 20% price breaks for "refurbished" Macs found at the Apple Store Online!

[stompy]

Originally Posted by TheMadMilkman

Having worked retail myself, you would be very surprised how little of a price break is needed to grab people's interest. 32" TV for under $200? Did you read the pre-sale price, which was only $220? Yet people will wait in line and fight over saving a measly $20 on a crappy TV.

You probably have some horror stories to tell. My brother-in-law is a cameraman for a local news station. Worst assignment of the year? Covering black Friday insanity. Fights over $30 toys.

[bigmc6000]

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

$1299.00 to $1199.00 is more like 11.55% price break and hey, this is Apple, and "Price Breaks" of any kind are rare outside of events like this. So take 'em when you can get 'em.

At least these machines are new (hopefully) versus the 13%, 15%, 17%, or 20% price breaks for "refurbished" Macs found at the Apple Store Online!

Huh? How does $100 off something over $1000 give you anything higher than 10%? $100 off of a $1299 computer is 100/1299 which is 7.7%. Now the 100 off the whitebook is almost exactly 10% the other deals are ALL less than 10%. In order, from top to bottom the %'s off: (I rounded to the even dollar i.e. 999.99 = 1000)
7.7, 9.4, 10, 5, 4, 3.6, 6, 8.3, 6.7, 8.3, 8.3, 6.3, 5.4 for an average % off of 6.8 (if going by average %'s). If you bought one of each of those your total % off would be 6.3%

[aaarrrgggh]

So are these the discounts we should expect from Apple on Black Friday?

[Kasper]

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

So are these the discounts we should expect from Apple on Black Friday?

No one knows, though in past years Apple has limited discounts to the consumer family of products (iMacs and MacBooks).

Best,

K

[Booga]

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

$1299.00 to $1199.00 is more like 11.55% price break and hey, this is Apple, and "Price Breaks" of any kind are rare outside of events like this. So take 'em when you can get 'em.

At least these machines are new (hopefully) versus the 13%, 15%, 17%, or 20% price breaks for "refurbished" Macs found at the Apple Store Online!

IMHO, buying Macs "refurbished" just means that someone's actually tested them out to see if they work before shipping them to you. I've never had a DOA refurbished machine.

[iVlad]

Honestly Black Friday is really nothing special, these stores take advantage of stupid people who fall for crap that is last years or doesn't sell. Apple already give these kind of prices to MacMall for example, which you can get any day. Apple is not some cheap store that fights for number of customers, they fight for quality customers.

iTunes plus is nice, finally its expanding. I love my iTunes, I do see some pluses in Amazon, but its much easier to find new music and get in on iTunes for me. I guess I am a successful tied customer of Apple.

[bloggerblog]

I for one like Apple's stiff prices, it gives me piece of mind when buying a Mac when I need to, and not worry about missing any major sales or missing some major store slashing prices.

[dr_devious]

It may not be much but a discount is a discount. I got a price adjustment for the MacBook is bought at Best Buy last week. I got $100 for the sale and they also gave me my $50 Educational Discount in addition. $150 off for newly introduced Apple notebook isn't too bad!

[robb01]

This is pretty exciting, although not sure if its a great move


_____________

[dburnett1]

I bought my MBP 13 days ago and when I sale this sale, I went into the Apple Store and they gave me a price adjustment on the spot. Great service.....as Black Friday will be more than 14 days for me to ask for the price adjustment..

Great Apple Store in Madison WI.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

$1299.00 to $1199.00 is more like 11.55% price break and hey, this is Apple, and "Price Breaks" of any kind are rare outside of events like this. So take 'em when you can get 'em.

Actually, $100 off of $1299 is more like a 7.7% price break.

Not saying it's chopped liver, but it sure ain't 11.55%. Maybe you were thinking of $150 off? That'd match up with your percentage almost exactly.

Also, you can often get price breaks at Amazon, so events like Black Friday are kind of overrated, far as Macs are concerned.
(emphasis added)


...

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

At least these machines are new (hopefully) versus the 13%, 15%, 17%, or 20% price breaks for "refurbished" Macs found at the Apple Store Online!

Get a clue. Refurbs are also new.

They didn't come out of a dumpster or a 2nd hand computer store.

Most of the time they are simply returns because someone thought the Mac didn't match their drapes. Since Apple opened the retail stores, they've had to deal with a lot of returns that they can't sell new with returns that had nothing to do with any hardware issues.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by satchmo

Slashes? More like 'trims'.

$100 off a $2400 laptop is not going to be much of an incentive other than to those who had planned to buy one.

Agreed. The price 'trims' are pretty weak, especially on the MacBook Pros (4 or 5% discounts? LOL). You can already beat those prices on Amazon (albeit with a wait for the rebate), WITHOUT subjecting yourself to Black Friday madness.

*visualizes getting body-checked into aisle 4 by a rampaging 350-lb woman looking for a Nintendo Wii for the kiddies*

The discounts are indeed kinda 'meh', but I guess sometimes it's just about getting your name featured prominently in the Black Friday ads. Apple's playing the BF game just enough to get noticed, without offering that much in the way of a price break.

Typical Steve. Gotta luv him.


...

[hittrj01]

Being one of the Apple Certified associates at my Best Buy, I can say that while these prices aren't bringing in more customers to look at Macs, they are causing many more customers coming in to look at computers in general to walk over to our Mac table. I worked earlier this morning and sold 6 Macs in 2 hours, during one of the slowest times of the entire week. Typically, 1 or 2 Macs are sold suring Monday mornings, and while some of it may be holiday shopping, I have to think a lot of it has to do with the prices being that much more affordable for people. Plus, it drops our base Mac down to what it should have been to begin with, 899, and people have been eating that one up so far. Maybe it will tell Apple something, but who knows.

[FuturePastNow]

The base white Macbook for $899 is probably the best deal there.

[iOrlando]

i;m pretty sure Apple will be having nearly the same sale on their own website (stores) on black friday. I have been hearing, the sales will be modestly better then last year's black friday. $100-$150 off macbooks is my best estimate.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by iOrlando

i;m pretty sure Apple will be having nearly the same sale on their own website (stores) on black friday. I have been hearing, the sales will be modestly better then last year's black friday. $100-$150 off macbooks is my best estimate.

Well last year's and the year's before that sucked - so anything would be an improvement.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

The base white Macbook for $899 is probably the best deal there.

That does sound good and firewire too- how sweet!

[zorinlynx]

Retailer margins are very low on Macs, so you won't see price cuts more than this on new product.

Sorry folks.

However, you should take what you can get since price cuts on Apple products aren't common to begin with.

[pouvoirsavoir]

I bleed Apple rainbow colors or black or white, depending on where you cut me, but I find some of the followups to this story curious.

For one, who cares if the Apple Store has a policy of matching this discount that Best Buy has provided? Why was it not mentioned in the update whether Fry's will match this discount? MacMall? Small Dog? Other World Computing? Why even mention the Apple Store at all? If one is curious about what Apple might do on Black Friday, simply use Google and look up "Apple Store Black Friday 2007" or "Apple Store Black Friday 2006" to get a rough idea?

It's a nice deal at a decent retailer, and their Reward Zone should apply as well, where you get 2% back. I've got a local one and their prices are good on some things, overpriced on others, but generally more reasonable than what I've seen at the Apple Store. Not a bad place to buy, though I'm not in the market at the moment, but that $899 MacBook would be a great girlfriend present in a stronger economy . . .

[zanshin]

Originally Posted by pouvoirsavoir

I bleed Apple rainbow colors or black or white, depending on where you cut me, but I find some of the followups to this story curious....

... that $899 MacBook would be a great girlfriend present in a stronger economy . . .

Ya know, if everyone bought their girlfriend (or boyfriend) a new MacBook for Christmas (or whatever, don't go all P.C. on me, folks...) the economy would BE a lot stronger!

Of course, Apple's product delivery delays would inevitably follow, then we'd have hundreds of Flaming posts about how they should have seen it coming, and at least 5 or 10 of us would start up again about the new MB not having FireWire...

[desides]

I just got back from Best Buy, where I purchased a 2.4GHz MacBook. I had hoped to get a MacBook Pro, but just couldn't justify the price leap. However, I could justify the leap from the 2.0GHz MB to the 2.4GHz MB thanks to this sale.

While everyone is correct that the price reductions could stand to be steeper, I think it's best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by desides

I just got back from Best Buy, where I purchased a 2.4GHz MacBook. I had hoped to get a MacBook Pro, but just couldn't justify the price leap. However, I could justify the leap from the 2.0GHz MB to the 2.4GHz MB thanks to this sale.

While everyone is correct that the price reductions could stand to be steeper, I think it's best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Urk. You could've gotten the early 2008 MacBook Pro off Amazon for $1444... a little bit less than what you shelled out for the 2.4GHz MacBook at the Best Buy sale.

But hey, if you really dig the MB and don't need the MB Pro's advantages, stick with the MB.


...

[billp1]

Just back from the Apple store and they matched the Best Buy price on our new MacBook 2.4 ghz.
$1449 plus tax.