Apple Employees to Receive 50% Off Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport Models, $550 Off Gold Model

[Rogifan]

Projected sales must be well BELOW expectations.

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Yeah I guess the iPhone must have been doomed too since many Apple employees were given one for free. And the same must be true then for the Google OEM products that are given away to developers at I/O.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Alternative: Consumers are getting Robbed.

Vote with your dollars and don't buy one then. Apple will get the message if enough people feel the same way as you do and don't buy one.

 

[mi7chy]

Apple should be giving them to employees for free since the BOM cost shouldn't be much more than iPod Shuffle or Nano which are about $22 and $44.

 

[Locoboof]

How cool is that?! It's nice to see their employees getting something good like this. Plus it's a win win for apple. It's a great way to spread the good word if you've got pretty much all of your employees wearing one. Great promotion tactic.

 

[Taz Mangus]

This only proves how HIGH a markup consumers are paying for an Apple Watch.

I guess since Apple was giving free iPhones, in the past, to Apple employess, that also proves your point.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple should be giving them to employees for free since the BOM cost shouldn't be much more than iPod Shuffle or Nano which are about $22 and $44.

What's your source for that?

 

[iPro97]

A great time to work for Apple!

 

[Legend of Ive]

I wonder which retail employee is going to be able to afford the gold model.

 

[gavroche]

Yeah I guess the iPhone must have been doomed too since many Apple employees were given one for free. And the same must be true then for the Google OEM products that are given away to developers at I/O.

And you missed the other major problem with his statement.... that "projected sales" must be below "expectations". Haha.

 

[CartoonCat]

50% off $300-$400 is a lot better deal than $550 off $10,000...which is about 5%.

 

[SirCheese]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Apple CEO Tim Cook today sent out an email to all Apple employees to thank them for the effort they've put into the launch of the Apple Watch and to announce a major discount on Apple Watch models for Apple workers. The email was obtained by MacRumors and is shared below.

Employees will be able to order any stainless steel Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport for personal use at a 50 percent discount, and Apple is also offering $550 off the Apple Watch Edition. $550 is half off the most expensive stainless steel Apple Watch and the maximum discount that employees can obtain.

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Over the course of the past several weeks, MacRumors has spoken to multiple Apple retail employees who have relayed just how much work has gone into Apple Watch preparations. Training for the Apple Watch has been intense and somewhat stressful, as employees have needed to learn all new sales techniques to relate to customers in a more personal manner to offer fashion recommendations.

Employees are also gearing up for a couple of busy weeks as customers begin scheduling try-on appointments in stores beginning April 10, so the discount on the Apple Watch will be seen as a welcome bonus. In his email, Tim Cook says that he wants Apple retail employees to "share in the experience" of the Apple Watch right alongside the customers that are purchasing them, and he goes on to thank all of the retail employees that will be working with customers in the coming weeks.

Tim Cook's email also includes a note about third-party apps. He says that "more than one thousand apps" were submitted to Apple for approval last week after the company began accepting submissions, and that "the rate of submissions has only been climbing since then." We've covered many of the Apple Watch apps that have already surfaced, both in a comprehensive list that contained many of the first available apps and individual posts (airlines, to-do lists, transit apps) that give a deeper look at how we'll be able to use the Apple Watch. Even more info on Apple Watch apps can be found on Apple's dedicated app site.

The Apple Watch will be available for pre-order beginning April 10, which is also the day that try-on appointments will become available. The Apple Watch officially launches on April 24.

Article Link: Apple Employees to Receive 50% Off Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport Models, $550 Off Gold Model

You link to your own site at the bottom and nothing in that letter says they are getting any discount on the Gold watch.

 

[Blackstick]

I wonder which retail employee is going to be able to afford the gold model.

Store and Market leaders, essentially corporate, salaried, retail-as-a-formality employees.

 

[SteveJobs2.0]

How cool is that?! It's nice to see their employees getting something good like this. Plus it's a win win for apple. It's a great way to spread the good word if you've got pretty much all of your employees wearing one. Great promotion tactic.

It's a promotion tactic if and while the employees wear the watches outside the apple stores. Inside the stores it will not make much of a difference since the customers will be suspicious of employee bias and besides, once somebody is in the store to look at the watch, then their buying intention will have already been shaped by other forms of advertising.

 

[shyam09]

An apple employee that's able to afford an iWatch Edition gets a beastly $550 off ... time to get a job at my local Apple store. I will then buy the watch and flip them for $500 profit! Muahahahaha

Oh wait, I can't afford it to begin with.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Projected sales must be well BELOW expectations.

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Apple in the past gave away free iPhones and also gives their employees discounts on Mac computers and iOS devices.

 

[spectrumfox]

Seems like a good way to pad them numbers.

 

[mi7chy]

What's your source for that?

Apple Watch is pretty much iPod Shuffle/Nano fusion with strap.

https://technology.ihs.com/389279/

https://technology.ihs.com/388837/isuppli-estimates-new-ipod-nano-bill-of-materials-at-4373

 

[SteveJobs2.0]

Store and Market leaders, essentially corporate, salaried, retail-as-a-formality employees.

Nope. The gold watch will be sold to a very select few individuals that influence the opinions of the general public. I fully expect the gold watch to have been produced in extremely small quantities that will be sold within a few weeks at most. That watch is designed almost exclusively to create news in the media.

 

[Glideslope]

Meh...

Looking to drive more sales. I think Apple is nervous.

 

[ZCT]

This only proves how HIGH a markup consumers are paying for an Apple Watch.

Your comment proves that you could benefit from reading some books on business and how retail works.

Apple spent three years with dozens of employees to make this happen. Prototypes, software engineering, figuring out the manufacturing on a massive scale.

Then take a look at an Apple Store. Have you noticed how high end it is? The prominent and prime real estate they occupy. Did you notice the Italian marble on the floor? Did you imagine all those Apple employees work for free?

Apple have to price this watch to pay for all these costs and overheads, and make some profit so that all this effort had a purpose.

If they break even on some employee sales, who cares? It's just a useful marketing trick. You see enough people doing something, it becomes the norm.

 

[JGowan]

Good for Apple employees. It's right smart of Apple to want to make sure that just about every employee can get one so that they can help customers from a personal perspective. If you're an Apple employee and you own a product, you're clearly going to know the in's and out's of it and are naturally going to be that much more helpful and excited about the device. Also, it's just good employee relations. Happy employees create a great work environment for the customer to be a part of.

 

[Taz Mangus]

It's a promotion tactic if and while the employees wear the watches outside the apple stores. Inside the stores it will not make much of a difference since the customers will be suspicious of employee bias and besides, once somebody is in the store to look at the watch, then their buying intention will have already been shaped by other forms of advertising.

Apple employees get discounts on other Apple hardware, so this is nothing new. It also covers employees working at Apple corporate.

 

[Locoboof]

It's a promotion tactic if and while the employees wear the watches outside the apple stores. Inside the stores it will not make much of a difference since the customers will be suspicious of employee bias and besides, once somebody is in the store to look at the watch, then their buying intention will have already been shaped by other forms of advertising.

It's cool none the less. No matter how strategical it is. I know if I was a employee,I wouldn't care how or why the discount was given. I'd just be happy.

 

[avanpelt]

Maybe I'm just hanging out with people who are outside the target demographic of Apple Watch, but I've been in rooms with people when the Apple Watch commercial comes on and no one in the room seems to be the least bit interested in it. And most of the time, the people in the room are iPhone and iPad owners exclusively. I hope, for Apple's sake, that they haven't grossly overestimated the public's interest in smart watches.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Seems like a good way to pad them numbers.

LOL! Funniest comment of the thread so far.