If you're an iOS user who hasn't yet purchased the newly released iPhone 5c but intend to, you may want to head over to Best Buy (News - Alert) today.
Living up to its name, the mega store that has been struggling to thrive of late, is selling the new phone for half of what Apple (News - Alert) is asking for the phone: fifty bucks. In offering the hot new product at a significantly slashed price, Best Buy is undercutting deadly competitors like Walmart and Target (News - Alert) who are retailing the phone at $80.
Here's how it works: customers receive a $50 gift card with the phone, which they can present upon checking out the $99.99 device. If you’re not an iOS guy or gal, Best Buy is also offering a deal on Samsung (News - Alert) Galaxy smartphones, albeit a less impressive one. The $199 Samsung Galaxy S4, for instance, now sells at Best Buy for $150.
Best Buy's iPhone 5c campaign provides a hot bargain, no doubt, but it's a little late in the season. Two weeks may not sound like a lot, but in a tech-crazed world where lines go on for blocks on the day a new Apple gadget drops, it’s a bit of a light year. Best Buy would have had more success had its marketing team engineered this deal months ago and had it ready to go on the day the iPhone (News - Alert) 5c was unveiled in stores. And the question begs to be asked: Why isn't the company sporting any discount whatsoever on the iPhone 5s, which retailing at $199.99, is getting stronger reviews and acquiring demand? If you're going to wait two weeks to hold a sale designed to lure Johnny-Come-Latelys, it seems arguably more prudent to hold it for the product that is obviously better, and the one that everyone is trying to get his/her hands on. Even a 25 percent discount off an in-stock iPhone 5s would have people scrambling to buy.
The sale runs through the end of today, October 7.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson