My surprising first trip to an Apple Store
(4 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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Do you have a Apple store in your city? I didn’t think there was one near me, I even talked about how there wasn’t an Apple store near me, but to my surprise, there is. I cant believe that one slipped by me. I decided to check out my newly found local Apple store to see all of those fisherprice Nicely designed Apple products that I haven’t seen in person yet, such as the AppleTV and iMac.
I head over to the mall and ride the elevator to the floor where the directory said the store is located and there at last I see the Apple logo. I walk inside with wonder in my eye, expecting to see happy people and smiling faces and Apple products. I take a step inside and was really surprised.
There wasn’t much there!
Yea they had iPhones, they had iPods, they had the AppleTV. They had just about every product they sell in the store on display for all to see. There were people in the store smiling and oogling over the wonder that is Apple. There were the smiling Apple store employee’s waiting to tell you why a Mac is better. All of those things happened as I was expecting, but as I was walking around the store, I couldn’t help but think that there was no need to have a whole store for these few products. Maybe a aisle in Best buy, but a whole store?
When you think about it, Apple have a lot of products, but basically they have iPods, Notebooks, Macs, iMacs, the iPhone and AppleTV. Maybe about 10 separate products. And most of them are small. It just looked like a scarce empty hall, sortof like those cell phone stores. Putting those things in perspective, it makes me really wonder about the larger stores. If this store looks as empty as it does, what about the huge stores in California or New york? Do you walk into those stores and just see rows of iPod Nanos to fill the space?
Regardless of how empty the store looked, It was still a really nice looking store and I am pleased to know that there is one near me.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
“Maybe a aisle in Best buy, but a whole store?”
Uh, yeah… considering that Apple Stores sell more product per square foot than any other retailer in America, including Best Buy (and even Tiffany’s), I think they know what they’re doing. Why don’t you stick to what you know, whatever that is.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Hmm. Best Buy brings in $930 per square foot, the best of all general electronics retailers. That’s pretty good. Saks, as a comparison, brings in sales of $362 per square foot a year. Tiffany & Co. wipes them all out because it takes in an amazing $2,666 per square foot.
Apple stores bring in an astounding $4,032, per square foot. Apple reached $1 billion in annual sales in their stores faster than any retailer in history.
“When you think about it” you obviously have no clue about retail marketing. Perhaps you could find a course on the subject at your local community college. Until then, go back to playing Halo.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I was talking about the number of items in the store, not how much they sell per square feet (which is an impressive but misleading stat being that most Apple stores are probably the eighth of the size of a typical Best Buy). Calm down dude I wasn’t bashing Apple.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Again, I wasn’t talking about marketing. I was talking about how empty the store looked when I walked in. the picture attached to this post is the picture of the actual store, thats what it looks like without people, thats what I was talking about. It looks nice, which I said in the post. I’m glad its there which I also said in the post, it just looks empty. It would be hard to not look empty because there are mostly small products and there are only about 10-12 different products. Regardless of how much money they made or make, or how many people love their products.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I’m curious as to where and when the photo was taken. I haven’t been to a lot of Apple stores; but the ones I’ve been to usually have quite a few people in them. This photo doesn’t even show any sales staff.
I’m glad you finally went to one though. Remember, they hold software solution demos in the stores. You can check the calendar for each store online. They also hold “one-on-one” training by appointment if you buy a Mac or pay for a year of them. Usually there are a few people at the Genius Bar getting answers to their problems or files transfered rom their PC to their new Mac as they set it up. It’s unusual to see an empty Apple store.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
As you said, Apple Stores, sell mostly Apple stuff (Don’t get me started on how third-party software has been brushed aside for iPods, etc…). So you have a choice of two kinds of laptops, three kinds of desktops, four kinds of iPods, and a phone. So 10 things. Compare this with a trip down the aisle at your handy Best Buy, where you’ll see 10 kinds of laptops from HP, Gateway, and Sony. 10 kinds of desktops from HP and Gateway. 10 kinds of MP3 players from Apple, Sony, Creative, and Microsoft. 10 kinds of phones from Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola.
But, again, the Apple Store is designed to highlight Apple stuff. So you want the stuff to be out there where people will see it, play with it, etc. Not sitting on a shelf next to a bunch of other things that sort of hit the same genre.
A better comparison, by the way, is not with a Best Buy or Target, where the idea is to cram as much stuff as possible into as little space as possible. Probably a better example would be to compare it with a Sony store.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I didn’t actually take the picture, it was on the website. I’m guessing that the picture was taken when the mall was closed. There were plenty of people in the store when I went. It was in no way empty when it comes to people inside, I had to wait to play around with the iPod Touch. The mall is pretty new, about 6 or 7 years old. The store itself is probably less than a year old.
Its easy for me to miss, I actually live in a neighboring city with a couple of malls and only occasionally visit that particular mall (Macarthur center)
October 29th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Peter. I’m saying this and hoping I don’t go out tomorrow and find out different. But I wish there was a Sony store near me. The only other electronic or tech related “brand store” I know about near me is the Apple store and a Bose store. There use to be Gateway stores back before they all closed up but other than that, what we have are your average big box stores, and smaller general electronics specialty stores.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
That wasn’t a standard Apple Store, but one of their “Mini Stores”. Apple hasn’t made many of them, and due to their layout they do indeed tend to look kind of empty, especially when viewed from the entrance.
Do a google for Apple Mini Store to read more about them.
Mike
December 5th, 2007 at 9:53 am
@Mike - that’s not a ‘mini store’ - it’s a smaller standard configuration store.
The promo shots on Apple’s website are usually taken when the malls/stores are closed.