What's interesting is the unique situation apple has regarding sales. By now, Apples products more or less sell themselves, unless they release something new (unfamiliar?) , at which point consumers may need a new sales strategy to educate them on the product. (Apple TV/ ToyBox?)
The Apple stores work as a good place to buy an iPhone/ hang out If you're in a mall or feeling like splurging, but for the most part I think they work as a way of offering customer education for macs, and technical service for all the products. The sales process has become rather streamlined since aggressive sales people are not really necessary. Name one other company where an average person (not a rich person) walks into their stores and casually spends $300-800 with no remorse.
Educated consumers with little time to spend in malls buy their products online (only very OCD people and extreme apple fans wait in line on the first day). Those that actually walk into the store and require assistance to make their decision are the average/uneducated Apple customers.
Whereas the genius bar used to be a very friendly/personal experience I feel it is now more of a to the point place to get you our device fixed. The presence of an overly cheery apple store employee makes me cringe a bit. I honestly like to walk around the stores and occasionally ask some questions, but most of the time I'm just honoring my own curiosity or trying to reaffirm by confidence in Apple not falling into oblivion as some people seem to think will happen.
Aside from the need to make decisions on expanding store sizes/ managing employee quality control ( something I do feel needs a bit of work) I honestly don't know what the VP of sales is doing that isn't easily replaceable.
I'm shocked Apple stores still have the types of crowds they do. I would think that by now customers would have learned that you can just as easily buy the device online and return it if you don't want it (not that anyone returns an apple product
). The fact that they can maintain sales of 6k per square foot for a fairly streamlines product implies great things ahead when they introduce the next device.
Have any of you tried walking into an AT&T store/Verizon store? The sales people all use android phones and the stores are a mess of low to high price android phones/ most of which are crap. The wall of Android is cluttered, confusing, and utterly unattractive. I personally think this must be confusing for customers ( who don't like to be confused and who don't like to make a choice). The android phones all look the same ( and there are so many of them) while the iPhone is in front of a white setup that symbolically screams "Buy me instead of those cheap knockoffs". I have doubts most educated customers are buying the S3. I think it's the low energy customers who were advised by the sales people that they could save $100-$200 and would get a better product. My guess is a decent number of these people won't buy another one ( especially those that have had to deal with the Samsung warranty).
I also think many bought an S3 before Apple sold a phone with 4G. AT&T and Verizon were aggressively trying to sell all android phones instead of the iPhone to support their 4G network. Now, they are pushing the low cost phones over the iPhone due to subsidies. Ultimately, I don't think this will work s customers may buy blindly, but an unsatisfied customers, or someone that doesn't like the hassle of dealing with Samsung warranty support who doesn't care about personalizing their phone or installing the latest torrent client won't be a repeat buyer. There are also the people that b android because they vehemently hate Apple. These guys would buy an android phone and preach about it as a gift from god and affirm the iPhone is inferior and overpriced because they say so. I have no problem with android (aside from it being a doomed business model), I do however have a problem with Jerks.
The market for iPhones/iPads is the same thing as the PC market. PCs as a whole may sell 10x better than the Mac Book pro/air but Apple actually makes money off of their devices while HP and Dell are stuck in a death spiral. People won't flock from the Mac Book to an ultra-book just because it's $100-200 cheaper. Some might, but those people probably wouldn't have purchased Apple anyway. Some may switch, but my guess is Apple will continue to take in billions, while the competitions continues to kill each other.
Long story short : The VP of sales is very replaceable.