I love discounts as I might have mentioned once or twice before so I recently enjoyed looking at Apple’s back-to-school promotion, especially, since I am a proud owner of a Mac. A few years ago I went through the process of choosing a new laptop and decided on an Apple. Back then they enticed us buyers with a free $200 touch screen iPod with our purchase. Needless to say, this limited time promotion helped hurry my decision between a 13” and a 15” rather quickly and forced me to finally click purchase. (Who knows, without the deadline, I might still be deciding.)
2012 marks the second year of Apple’s downgrade from a free iPod to a $100 gift card with the purchase of a Mac during back-to-school season. This year, they’ve added a $50 gift card with the purchase of an iPad.
Now, you may remember that Apple’s decision to stop giving away iPods didn’t go over too well last year. It seemed that Apple fans preferred receiving an actual free tangible item, especially since the dollar value of the promotion dropped from around $200 to a $100 gift card. After years of free iPod giveaways, the shift to gift cards felt like a shock. Even though all of us Mac users love the innovation and creativity that accompanies Apple, truth be told, we like stability too.
Did you know that when SheerID asked over 2,000+ students, many of whom were polled in person, about purchasing software, not a single student said “I don’t own a computer.” I don’t want to go all “I remember when gas was under a dollar and MTV played actual music video’s” on you, but here’s the thing. Personal computers, when I was a college student, were unheard of. In my day, we had typewriters and computer labs. If you were lucky, you went to a college that had a main server on campus and a terminal in each dorm room. And all that gave you was an easy way to pull up your class schedule and the weekend lunch menu for the cafe.