news Apple has confirmed that its online and retail Australian stores will offer customers one-day only discounts today for Black Friday celebrations. The last Friday in November, known as Black Friday in the US, is a day of massive discounts on various items to start the Christmas shopping season.

Black Friday follows Thanksgiving Day in the US, with most retail stores opening their doors extremely early in the morning. The busiest shopping day of the year in the United States for the last six years, the day’s name is probably linked to the massive vehicular and pedestrian traffic on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The name is also said to indicate the point when retailers are “in the black” (beginning to make a profit).

Apple has published a promotional page on its Australian Apple store about Black Friday. The page lists discounts ranging from $45 off an iPad 2 to $121 off a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro or iMac.

The company had previously mailed its Australian customers earlier this week on November 22 to confirm the local availability of discounts, in spite of there being no traditional Black Friday celebration in the country. “Mark your calendar. This Friday, 25th November is the special Apple one-day shopping event. Visit your favourite Apple Retail Store or shop online all day,” reads the promotional page.

Although Apple’s Black Friday discounts have been available here via the online store or by phone for several years, the range of sales products at its retail stores has so far been limited. This year too, the company’s email clarifies that all sales items will not be available at all stores.

Image credit: Apple

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1. billy
   Posted 25/11/2011 at 11:26 am | Permalink | Reply

   I think you get cheaper discounts just by walking into any DIck Smith store and asking for 10% off the listed price of the Apple products they sell (they never seem to have any issues with giving that discount).

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 25/11/2011 at 11:41 am | Permalink | Reply

     True — but a lot of people prefer to buy from the Apple stores direct … no idea why. Reality distortion field?

     • Chris
       Posted 25/11/2011 at 1:16 pm | Permalink | Reply

       Renai – I reckon you’re right.

       People see the Apple store as a destination, not another shop. The new one that’s opened in my shopping drew Ikea-opening-numbered crowds for people to buy things which have been on sale for months elsewhere

       • joe
         Posted 28/11/2011 at 11:40 am | Permalink | Reply

         Perhaps, but I think they also assume, perhaps wrongly, that Apple will have the lowest prices on their own products.

2. Brendan
   Posted 25/11/2011 at 12:08 pm | Permalink | Reply

   “but a lot of people prefer to buy from the Apple stores direct..”

   That would be because Apple likes to constrain supply.

   It is (depending on order type) often faster to go to Apple direct and order, than to go to a reseller and wait. Apple invariably always have a higher stock count. No distortion field. Just the result of how the market has been built.

   Sorry to burst the bubble. ;)