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The employee who spoke with us--not knowing they were being interviewed for a story--said that the price advertised was a mistake and that is was really for a Mac mini.

Considering a high-end Mac mini retails at the Apple Store for $799, that wouldn't be entirely off base... if the price was $749. A savings of $50 would make it a great deal. $794 doesn't seem right, but a savings of $5 does make them the low price leader in that arena. (They do regularly sell iPods on sale from time to time, at $2 less than Apple does).

Then again, maybe that was another mistake too. A typo with the "4" and the "9" switched.

Another logical answer, though this is purely speculation based on evidence at the store, is that their price tag for the 20-inch aluminum iMac was $1194, a savings of about 20% off Apple's retail price. Maybe this was the sale price they intended to advertise for their Pre-After Thanksgiving Day sale? Whatever the deal was supposed to be, it got us thinking.

Maybe this was all a sales ploy to get customers in the store. Not that we're experts on the particular subject, but it's easy for a store to advertise a rock bottom price, and to cover their bases, all they have to do is post a disclaimer somewhere in the store, such as an "Ad Correction Notice" that states the mistake and gives apologies for the inconvenience.

However? The damage is done. The customer is in their store, they end up shopping anyway, and buy something else and walk out of the store having bought something, putting cash in the retailer's pocket. Again, purely speculation.

The comforting news, and it puts a feather in the retail chain's hat, is that Fry's Electronics--at least, this particular store (no word on whether other stores in the San Francisco Bay Area did the same thing)--honored that $794 price for a limited time.

According to the employee we spoke with, customers had lined up at the store before the 8:00a opening (nothing Black Friday-ish like lines around the block), hoping to get their hands on the bargain iMac. Fry's didn't realize the mistake in the newspaper ad until customers showed them the price when they went to make their Apple hardware purchase.

So, for those eagle-eyed customers who saw the ad and headed to Fry's Electronics first thing in the morning that day, they walked away with a brand new 20-inch aluminum iMac for 50% off Apple's retail price. The steal of the century.

The Fry's location honored the price in the ad, even after realizing the mistake, for one hour. After 9:00a, the customers who came in for the deal were notified that the price in the ad was an error, and then the apologies for the inconvenience were given out.

The employee told us they sold quite a number of units at that low price. He even mentioned that the customers joked around, pulling the retail chain's slogan front and center, when they walked away with their flashy new iMacs, quoting, "Your best buys are really at Fry's!"

(The company's slogan is, "Your best buys are always at Fry's... Guaranteed!").

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