Apple Names John Browett as New Senior Vice President of Retail

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Finally!

Apple has a good handle on retail, hopefully this boosts their strategy even more.

If he's as good with Apple as he was at Dixons, they should be in good shape....The guy knows retail inside out.

I wonder if they will make him work on fake Apple Stores first, to see if he can be trusted..

Tim Cook: Hi John, welcome at Apple. Here's our plan for a new store in Ulan Bator. Please take a look at it and tell us what you think.

John Browett:

I'm glad they got someone from outside the company and also outside the US. Apple is increasingly a global company and they need some fresh, foreign blood.

This really doesn't bode well. Hopefully this guy is leaving Dixons due to frustration with them, rather than seeing the writing is on the wall for current technology vendors.

Dixons retails closed their Dixons brand stores in the UK, a number of their Currys and PC World stores merged.

The shopping experience is frustrating - you can get accosted by 5 different members of staff as you browse the store - all asking 'are you ok there ? ' - staff are not very knowledgeable, products are poorly displayed, shelf labels are often missing, pricing differs in store and on the website, they are very eager to push warranties and technical support packages. They also have a lot of cheap crap sold at higher prices.

They have a new store concept - Currys PC World Black - where they are blatantly trying to emulate an Apple store - but it is screamingly obvious you are still in a PC World despite the lighting, benches, and smug staff.

I really hope since 2007 he's made Dixons a different place to shop than it used to be (I don't frequent their stores) prior to that:

Pushy, seemingly commission-based sales staff more interested in huddling in groups or being sleazy, rude and patronising. Trying to sell anything that's out of date or fashionable as if it will suit the customers needs perfectly. Horribly cramped retail environments with everything locked down and alarmed so you can't pick items up to try them out.
Unreasonably inflated prices that aren't helping to pay for a modern shopping experience with innovative features, or great customer service.
And so on…

I hope Tim Cook and his team haven't been bamboozled!

(I'm sure they haven't, it just seems like such a mismatch in retail philosophies and I hope John Browett fully subscribes to the Apple way of retailing.)

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What? Dixons are terrible over here. And not getting any better. In fact they taken the currys name in the UK

Dixons...wow, what an accolade! Retail equals cash, customer service is always second, even at Apple Stores.

Oh Dear

Watch out Apple, PC world is the the worst retail experience as others have said
If he can do that in the UK watch out.

He was at Tesco "pile em high and sell em cheap"

can he sell sugared water?

Jowl said:

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What? Dixons are terrible over here. And not getting any better. In fact they taken the currys name in the UK

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This.

The DSG group are forever rebranding!

If he's going to apply the same formula then expect Apple high street stores to close and move to retail parks - next to each other!

It does seem a strange appointment. Having worked with DSG in the past, I can say that their retail strategy is not geared towards a pleasant experience for the consumer at all.

However, Apple have a (recent) track history of employing some great people, as evidenced by Ron Johnson, who should be credited, at least in part, for making Apple the company they are today.

Given that, I'm willing to give this guy a chance. The moment an Apple retail store becomes anything like shopping in any DSG store, I'm out.

A UK head of retail for Apple? Hopefully this bucking means Ireland will finally gets a store, or nine.

If this is for real then I think its possibly the start of the down hill slope after Jobs.

DSG (Dixons Group); which covers Currys, PC World and what was once Dixons (now online only) is quite possibly one of the poorest UK retailers ever.
The only reason any of these stores thrived was due to them cornering the market in selling TVs, laptops and other household appliances.
In fact out of ALL the uk retail chains DSG if anything is the shittest at selling apple products, where often they try to sell previous models at full RRP and don't update displays for at least six months after the fact.

in fact a perfect example is a picture I sent to Mac User UK a few years ago when my local store was trying to sell a "Last chance display model" of a PowerMac G5 machine with a price and spec label of a Mac Pro !

I think it's obvious that no on that hiring panel was ever in Dixons.

sparkesy said:

If this is for real then I think its possibly the start of the down hill slope after Jobs.

DSG (Dixons Group); which covers Currys, PC World and what was once Dixons (now online only) is quite possibly one of the poorest UK retailers ever.
The only reason any of these stores thrived was due to them cornering the market in selling TVs, laptops and other household appliances.
In fact out of ALL the uk retail chains DSG if anything is the shittest at selling apple products, where often they try to sell previous models at full RRP and don't update displays for at least six months after the fact.

in fact a perfect example is a picture I sent to Mac User UK a few years ago when my local store was trying to sell a "Last chance display model" of a PowerMac G5 machine with a price and spec label of a Mac Pro !

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They sold TV's pretty good huh ?

interesting.......

Padraig said:

I think it's obvious that no on that hiring panel was ever in Dixons.

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... or Tesco, for that matter.

This guy's previous employers typify the antithesis of the Apple retail experience.

It will not end well, either for Apple or Browett...

Padraig said:

I think it's obvious that no on that hiring panel was ever in Dixons.

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Word. I check out products at PC World, fighting off unwanted assistants as I do so, then go online and get the same product for two thirds of the price. I don't even remember the last time I bothered with a Dixons store.

This seem like a bizarre appointment given his track record at bottom end retailers. And lets face it DSG are the bottom end (except for comet!)

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I second the view (or is that twelfth?!) that Dixons Group are an awful, awful retailer.

PC World Business/Equanet = Worst large B2B Reseller in the UK

Dixons = Such a rubbish reputation that it no longer exists in the UK (except for a limited online presence) and had to be re-branded to "daughter" brand "Currys"

Currys = Had to be re-branded "Currys Digital" and then "PC-World-Currys" "dual-stores" because they had no specialisation or brand identity/customer loyalty.

Price-wise they are awful. They made a concerted effort to drop prices in their larger "out of town" stores when Best-Buy moved into the UK. But only on stock that was waaaay past it's end-of-life.

Quite what he's perceived to have achieved to get this position I don't know. Clearly he talks a good game...shame about the implementation.

Mac Fly (film) said:

A UK head of retail for Apple? Hopefully this bucking means Ireland will finally gets a store, or nine.

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As ever I predict this will never happen (not this year anyway)

Where else would you find a decent head of retail?

To be fair, bricks and mortar technology retailing other than Apple is crap in the UK. I shopped around with my partner for a laptop last year, and gave up in bricks and mortar entirely. It's fine if you just want whatever random product and specification they have in stock, but if you want something specific, forget it. Much of what they have on display is not in stock either.

I wonder what bricks and mortar technology retailing outside the UK is like? I've been to Fry's in the US a few times, and certainly in terms of quantity of product, they tick the box.

Peace said:

They sold TV's pretty good huh ?

interesting.......

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No, they didn't sell TVs well - they were just one of the few places to do them - you'd got Argos, Currys, and Comet as the standards, with some regional UK stores selling them. Now you can buy TVs in most supermarkets - especially since non CRT ones take up less space and make it viable for stores to stock them.

As i said - just hoping that he's a great visionary that has been stifled by the corporate climates he's been in as a lot of the things in stores do seem to be 'design by committee'

Macman45 said:

If he's as good with Apple as he was at Dixons, they should be in good shape....The guy knows retail inside out.

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The Dixons Stores Group is a complete calamity. This is an astonishingly poor appointment.