Even though there are some economic signs that the economy might be trying to drag itself back to life, for the most
part jobs do not appear to be coming back in droves. As such, there are many retailers, and even car companies such as
Saturn and
Saab that likely may go dark. Sometimes when things
are the darkest, you should sacrifice immediate profit for future profits and loyalty. I feel this is something
that Apple missed the opportunity for, and how Apple blew Christmas.
Don't follow me? Let me explain.
So the last time you purchased a printer, it was probably not all that expensive. Why? Because the maker of that
printer realizes the money is not in the printer unit, but in the ink cartidges it's going to sell you after the
hardware sale. I print a lot of photo's as home for gifts, etc, and I figure I have personally spent 2 to 3 times
what the printer cost me, so far, on ink. (Insert potential future rant about ink prices here!!)
Apple makes some of the best selling players on the market, and runs the most popular music purchasing portal,
iTunes.
How do I think Apple blew Christmas? They should have drastically reduced prices on their entire line of iPod players
in order to lock people in as future loyal customers of their music and app store. Big deal if they lower $20 to $50 bucks. They will
make that back after a few simple album and application purchases. In addition, if Apple would stop taking bites
from the poison Apple, they should have released a damn iPod Touch with a camera. I would have upgraded immediately. Loss
of sales.
This is one of those, what will hopefully be, rare moments of economic melt down in which companies that are strong
enough can totally ramp up their user base by sacrificing some immediate profit for future loyalty and sales.
Yup, I think Apple blew Christmas.
This is just MY opinion, of course.
- Scott