He spent over $4,000 on iPhones and put them in his toy-catcher machine to attract more people to his shop. But four of the iPhones were won in a week.
AN IPHONE 4 in a toy-catcher machine? It sounds too good to be true.
But Mr Kelvin Lee, 24, who operates two such machines at the Golden Mile Food Centre, said he has given away four of the mobile phones as prizes since Oct 7.
And there is still one more to be won.
The machines are placed along the corridor outside Mr Lee's shop on the second storey of the mall. His shop offers repair and modification services for game consoles.
He came up with the idea of giving away iPhones as prizes to draw customers to his shop.
Mr Lee, who spent $4,440 to buy the iPhones, said he didn't put up signs to highlight the coveted prizes. The Apple website lists the price of a 16GB iPhone 4 as $888.
"My plan was to attract schoolboys and army boys to my shop, hoping they would see the iPhone and get their friends to come," he said.
"I thought it would take at least a week before anybody could win the first iPhone 4...I also expected the winner to spend at least $250 and take about two hours to win it."
Won in half an hour
But to his dismay, he said a man he believes is Australian spent only half an hour and less than $50 before winning an iPhone on the first day. Each try on the machine costs $1.
Said Mr Lee, who is himself an avid player of toy catchers: "I think it was sheer luck because even an expert in toy catchers would take at least an hour."
The next day, two women won an iPhone each.
Each took almost two hours and spent less than $200, said Mr Lee.
The fourth iPhone was won the day after that by a man who spent $79 in an hour.
Said Mr Lee: "I knew that putting up the iPhone 4 as a prize would mean a loss to my business, but I thought it could help raise the profile of my shop...But in the last week, only about 10 people came by my shop.
"I am disappointed because I didn't expect the iPhones to be won so quickly. I thought it would take about a week for each iPhone to be won."
Mr Lee said he had planned to put another five iPhones in the toy catchers but is now undecided because of the dismal traffic to his shop.
He claimed that he used to collect about $10 from both machines every day.
Over the weekend, he said he collected about $200, excluding the amount spent by the winners.
One more phone left
His shop was closed on Monday, and since then, he said, hardly anyone has played the machine, which still had the fifth iPhone.
He added that he was surprised when someone posted a picture of an iPhone 4 box in the toy catcher on citizen journalism website Stomp. Shin Min Daily News carried a report about iton Oct 8.
The fourth winner, Mr Claudio Chua, 27, who works in the airline industry, said he visited the shop after seeing Stomp and the Shin Min report.
"I was sceptical that there could be such a prize.
Then I thought perhaps it was a fake iPhone. But when I saw the iPhone 4 box in the machine, I decided to try to win it."
He said he took his friend to the shop over the weekend to try his luck, but the latter left empty-handed after spending about $80.
According to Mr Lee, each winner is allowed to win the iPhone only once.
Mr Lee said he had bought the toy catcher machines, which cost $1,500 each, in June to get rid of the more than 300 stuffed toys he had won from similar machines.
He said he became hooked on the machines in February and spent about $7,000 within two weeks, winning about 300 stuffed toys.
"I felt stupid to have spent that much because I could have bought several toy-catcher machines myself. So I did that," he said.
"I thought I could continue to amuse myself and at the same time get rid of the toys I collected."
'Ingenious, but not profitable'
ARCADE operators contacted by The New Paper say this is the first time they have heard of an iPhone 4 being offered as a prize in a toy catcher machine.
These machines, also known as claw machines, toy grabbers or crane machines, are usually filled with stuffed toys.
Mr Vincent Song, 27, the business development manager of Virtualand and Star factory game arcades, which has 11 outlets here, said he was surprised to hear of this.
He said: "It is an ingenious idea to raise publicity for the shop, but in the long run, it would not be profitable."
Mr Song said one of the most expensive prizes offered in Virtualand and Star Factory outlets is the PlayStation 3 console for a game called the Stacker, where players stack blocks on top of each other. They win a prize if the blocks reach a certain level.
Mr Lao Jiwei, 26, owner of Prize Stage which has six outlets, said he has heard of iPhones being used as prizes in toy catcher machines in the US. He has about 50 toy catcher machines at his Marina Square outlet.
He said that while putting up such a lucrative prize might attract people for a while, it would not be sustainable.
Miss Evi, 28, the marketing manager for Timezone, which runs 15 game arcades, said its toy catchers carry only plush toys as prizes as the machines are designed to pick up toys.
She said its game arcades offer the iPhone as a premium prize, but only at the prize redemption counter.
By Hedy Khoo,
The New Paper | Photo: The New Paper | 18-10-10
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