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In 2003, Apple Store traffic was light, and Retail leadership was searching for ways to lure customers inside stores. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with former Apple VP Steve Cano:
We were trying to get more traffic. During Christmas season, we created our own Apple certified wrapping paper that we actually were trying to sell because we want to get more traffic and more buzz. Even opening in Japan, every New Year, they have this program thing that's called The Lucky Bag, where you literally take a shopping bag and you fill it up with all kinds of unique things, but the customer doesn't know. You can put an iPod in there. You can put, you know, AppleCare in there, you can put accessories. And then they come and they spend $200 or $300 on it. They go home, open it up, and it's called a Lucky Bag. It's so inconsistent with what Apple would normally do, but we were so hungry that we did that. It was wildly successful. And we ended up doing that for about a decade.
Apple’s first Lucky Bag, or Fukubukuro, was sold at Apple Ginza in Tokyo for New Year’s Day 2004. Details about that initial promotion are scarce, but according to ifoAppleStore, an iSight camera, Keynote, .Mac discount card, Bluetooth adapter, and a wireless mouse were bundled in an 18x24” zippered black vinyl bag.
After the success in Tokyo, Apple began using the Lucky Bag as a tool to promote significant new store openings. In San Francisco, Apple sold between 200–250 Lucky Bags to the first customers for $249 each. According to Dan Frakes at Macworld, the actual retail value of a “standard” bag was roughly $683, plus tax and the value of the 10% discount card bundled inside. Every sixth bag included a special treat: an iPod or iPod mini.
Lucky Bags appeared again at the openings of Apple Shinsaibashi and Apple Regent Street. In London, 300 bags were sold, and customers complained of line cutting and administrative issues that soured the experience. Here’s Apple’s archived terms and conditions page, which lists the contents of the bag.
The opening day tradition ended, but New Year Lucky Bags rolled on in Japan and were hotly anticipated every December. Apple prepared DJ Battles and Workshops for kids. Souvenirs with New Year branding were distributed annually.
Kodawarisan profiled the Lucky Bag event at Apple Shinsaibashi in 2006, where Apple prepared t-shirts printed with a mesmerizing iPod pattern and packaged in a red box. In 2007, Apple began offering a limited number of Lucky Bags for sale online — just 10 per day for 20 days! The luckiest bags eventually grew in scope, adding MacBooks and iPads.
In 2010, Apple partnered with accessory maker Power Support to create a unique Crystal Jacket Set for the iPod nano 5th generation complete with an Apple logo and the text “Apple Store 2010.”
Each 2012 Lucky Bag contained my favorite souvenir of any year: a set of pins with a design unique to the store you purchased it at. At the time, Apple had seven stores in Japan.
Luck runs out
The Lucky Bag appeared to reach the peak of its popularity just before it was discontinued. In late 2015, Apple announced it would no longer offer the promotion in an effort to “provide homogeneous services in Apple Stores all over the world.” A small group of customers lined up at Apple Ginza anyway.
Earlier in 2015, Lucky Bags made a splash internationally with the prospect of scoring a MacBook Air for $300. Other bags that year included an iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, or iPod touch 5th generation. One sold for $940 on eBay. The experience of waiting in line for the final bag and a thorough look at its contents was documented in detail on YouTube.
It’s also worth entertaining the idea that the promotion simply got out of hand. Lines grew every year, and Apple no longer needed to sell products at a loss to attract customers. In 2015, a long line of customers was seen camped out at Apple Sapporo, the northernmost Apple Store in Japan. Those in line braved extreme cold and ended up covered in a layer of snow. One article suggested customers were risking their lives for the opportunity to buy. “Seriously, no one is dead,” one passerby tweeted.
In recent years, Apple has kept the spirit of the Lucky Bag alive with special Japanese New Year promotions. For 2022 and 2023, a limited edition AirTag was offered with the purchase of an iPhone.
You can view this post and the entire Tabletops archive on the web at any time here. In case you’re curious, the Lucky Bag terms and conditions page is still online.