Remember how Apple joined the growing number of merchants refusing to offer Black Friday deals last year? Well, the deals are back, but not in a way you’d expect.
The company announced yesterday, on a special section on its website, that it will offer a one-day, online-only sales event this Friday. It’s unclear which products will be included in the event.
Right now we are not sure what the deals will be, but the Apple Store App and our website is always the best source for info.
— Apple Support (@AppleSupport) November 22, 2016
The website, however, does give one hint to the eager shoppers: download the Apple Store app “for the fastest way to shop our one-day event” (and we know that speed is everything on Black Friday). The app is compatible with Apple Wallet, meaning customers will be able to quickly check out using Apple Pay.
It’s clear that that Apple is now focusing its forces on e-commerce. But will that also drive traffic to its payment wallet? Apple Pay has been doing increasingly well, Tim Cook said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in October:
Apple Pay transactions were up nearly 500% year-on-year for the September quarter. In fact, we completed more transactions in the month of September than we did across all of fiscal 2015. And with Apple Pay support now built into Safari, hundreds of thousands of websites are bringing Apple Pay to their customers.
It’s not news that digital — online and mobile — is now the preferred channel for the holiday shopping season. A recent study by PayPal revealed that millennials are “significantly more likely to shop while binge watching TV, in bed, on the toilet, or at the table” during this holiday season. So a one-day, online exclusive event (which prompts you to check out with Apple Pay) could indeed step up Apple Pay’s adoption.