Apple ends the Lucky bag program.

[quagmire]

Regent Street apple store made history in 2 ways. 1. Was the first UK apple store. 2. Was the last flagship store to see the lucky bags. According to ifoapplestore apple ended the program.

Apple has apparently decided to end the Lucky Bag program that has accompanied the grand opening of its last three flagship stores, no doubt in part because of the administrative issues surrounding the sales. That news is among the topics in my latest "rant" that also covers being a Webmaster and future stores.

http://www.ifoapplestore.com/

 

[jsw]

What "administrative issues surrounding the sales"?

I was never lucky enough to get a "Lucky Bag", but I can't fathom what administrative issues would exist, save perhaps the 10% off coupon (maybe, possibly).

 

[quagmire]

Here I believe,

One person told me that his position in line changed during the early morning hours, putting him over the #300 position in line, and making him ineligible to purchase a Lucky Bag. He also claims that more than one member of the press admitted to the store was making Lucky Bag purchases. He pointedly brought the situation to the attention of store management. As a result, he states, Apple made an accommodation to him and several others. Perhaps most interestingly, they were also told that the Lucky Bag program was over--this was the last one.

http://www.ifoapplestore.com/rants/rant8.html

 

[Sun Baked]

Ikea's opening here required the closing of the offramps on the freeway.

They gave away a chair to the first couple hundred people and rewarded the first 5 in line, tents & camping gear plus gift certificates.

The first guy in line went to two grand opening of stores in town and earned about $18,000 in merchandise over 2 weeks for just waiting in line.

But the Apple openings haven't rewarded the diehard fans, since it seems the majority of the merchandise is eBayed.

A gift certificate (or discount card) is simpler if that all that a Lucky Bag amounts to.

Plus Apple should be ready to kick off the mini-Stores in bulk, and needs to redo the store opening rewards.

 

[asif786]

Well, the scheme didn't appeal much to me for a couple of reasons:

i) most of the people who queue up are big mac fans. Therefore, offering us things like a wireless mouse/kb, keynote, dotmac etc isn't really fair. They should reward us with some limited edition items or something..

ii) It's really a loss-leader for apple. if they arent getting appreciation for it, they probably realised there's no point bothering..

Then again, I bought one at regent street, I kept the 10% card and the Procare card and got rid of the rest..

/asif

 

[wdlove]

That is sad news, no more "Lucky Bags." They must not be seeing enough of an economic return. The news doesn't deter my longing for a Flagship Apple Store here in Boston though.

 

[Macky-Mac]

That is sad news, no more "Lucky Bags." They must not be seeing enough of an economic return. The news doesn't deter my longing for a Flagship Apple Store here in Boston though.

I think the "lucky bag" thing was always intended to be just part of the advertising and promotional scheme for opening stores.....I doubt that Apple ever viewed it as a "product" that would bring an economic return on its own.

If I remember the "lucky bag" givaway is something that is frequently done in Japan for store openings and Apple picked up on it as a promo event for their store in Tokyo and then continued to use it at some other new store openings elsewhere.

Unfortuantely, I suspect that the response hasn't been what Apple would have hoped for.....too much complaining and grumbling about the contents...."NO iPod??? I"VE BEEN RIPPED OFF!!!" plus lots of complaints about people crashing the lines and all of that seems to have tarnished the positive publicity that Apple probably would have preferred.

I guess it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.......oh well

 

[Applespider]

Yeah, I think a 'smaller' version would have worked better.

At some point in the queue, we figured out that 300 £249 bags with around 700 in them meant that it cost Apple just over £100K (forgetting currency conversions and allowing for those with more in it)

I figure that if they'd done a larger number of 'bags' at £50, they could have given everyone an Airport Express as a minimum and still given the 1 in 6 etc an iPod etc but people would be less likely to feel ripped off with the 'made up value' in software. Less greed and queue jumping with more available and actually cheaper to administer.

to be honest, what disappointed me about the lucky bag is that there's no Apple decal/logo anywhere on it!

 

[StarbucksSam]

I think it's silly for Apple to end ANYTHING that makes their customers happy what with the stock going up and all.