Apple to sell heavily discounted products in another ‘Lucky Bag’ promotion on Jan. 2

By Jason Hahn December 28, 2014

Apple store Japan — Image used with permission by copyright holder

On Jan. 2, 8 a.m. local time in Japan, Apple will continue to follow the Japanese tradition of fukubukuro (“lucky bag”), where brick-and-mortar retail stores sell bags filled with unknown items sold at heavy discounts. This is great news for shoppers in Japan; for the rest of us, it’s time yet again to get a little jealous.

Last year, shoppers in Japan were able to pay about $345 to get one of four variations of the Apple Lucky Bag containing items such as the iPod nano, iPad Air and MacBook Air. Each variation of the Lucky Bag was different, but all of them contained a commemorative T-shirt, backpack and Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation Mini.

The Beats by Dre Pill Bluetooth speaker, Apple Magic Mouse, Nike+ FuelBand SE, Square Reader and JayBird BlueBuds X headphones were among the other items included in the four versions of last year’s Apple Lucky Bag.

Not everyone who waits in line for an Apple Lucky Bag gets exactly what he or she hopes for, though everyone gets plenty of bang for their yen. Pricing for 2015’s Apple Lucky Bag has not been announced.

According to Apple’s Lucky Bag purchase policy page, these bags will be available for purchase only at Apple retail stores in Japan. The page also makes it clear that the limit is one Lucky Bag per shopper; pricing is non-negotiable; and items in the Lucky Bag are not eligible for return, refund or exchange (unless there’s a defect in the product).

[Image courtesy of Filipe Frazao/Shutterstock]

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Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

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