They will just open realy really small stores to beat apple at this record
LOL....Welcome to the new Microsoft Kiosk....a wagon in the food court next to the cheap sunglasses and mobile phone cases.
They will just open realy really small stores to beat apple at this record
I wouldn't cal this a fair comparison. The apple store only sells apple products. most of these stores sell more then one brand and more then one kind of product.
I am reading a book called 'Disrupt!' about businesses that thought outside the box, the Apple retail store is listed as one of the examples. Apparently, Apple observed that users like not only to look at a product, but interact with it: Touch it, feel it, as if it is their own. All Apple sales reps are trained not to hassle customers, be responsive but not to be over the customer's shoulder as they are shopping (have you been to a furniture store recently? Jesus!)
Apple sells an experience in their store, and they make it so easy for you to wip the plastic out and any t-shirt wearing sales rep can instantly do the checkout for you. No need to drag all the stuff and go to the 'checkout line'
They will just open realy really small stores to beat apple at this record
The impressive part there isn't that they're on top, it's that massive year over year change, in this economy, and while everyone else is looking at so much less gain, if any.
What does that have to do with it? Ordinarily having multiple brands and products would be thought to increase total sales, not decrease them.
I see the reference to the global sales figures now... but I don't understand why that would make this data skewed or worthless? If they are all being judged the same they should be pretty representative.
Either way, it does not matter.... it still shows that Apple has created a cash machine at retail and it's impressive.
I always suspected that's how Apple got the record in the first place. The only really large stores of theirs are the "iconic" ones in big cities, in very prominent locations. Most of the "rank and file" Apple stores are pretty small and cramped.
If Apple was less concerned with "sales per square foot" statistics, and more concerned with everyone's shopping experience being comfortable, stores feeling "spacious" inside, etc.? They would have built all of these smaller stores at 2x to 4x their current sizes.
LOL....Welcome to the new Microsoft Kiosk....a wagon in the food court next to the cheap sunglasses and mobile phone cases.
I wish they'd go on and tell us what #20 is instead of making us guess.
Actually, i think Apple stores are great. Lots of shiny computers, nice sales people, etc. They're really great when I actually want to BUY something.
But the rest of the time, the dazzle wears off in about 5 minutes, and then I'm standing around bored. I know all about Apple computers. I have no questions, unless it's about an iPod bumper case or some other 3rd party accessory. There's no software there to play with that I don't already have (or don't care about). I can't BROWSE in an Apple store either, because there's such a limited range of products.
Now, compare this to Fry's or Microcenter. Huge selections of all sorts of stuff I can browse through. I can actually keep myself entertained for maybe 30 minutes.
The most time I ever spend browsing a store, actually, is on Newegg.
This is likely due to Apple's *very* strategic store location planning. They're very careful to not water down their brand by putting stores on every corner a la Radio Shack. Plus, they generally only put them in upscale shopping areas.
Right...not to mention that Apple has opened new stores in a very down economy since 2008 (3 years now...which is important out of the 10 year existence) meaning that Apple is leasing low and selling a wanted product. Apple stores are also significantly smaller than many retailers (Best Buy, Gap, Target, Walmart, Macy's, etc) so they are using the space well.
But my overall question about this article is: who the heck cares? What kind of stat is this?! Honestly! This is like those crazy facts that sports announcers bring up since they started using databases to track everything:
Tom: "Hey Frank, did you know that Derek Jeter hits a .234 on sunny days with a sold out crowd with 1 man on base in an odd inning with 2 teammates on the DL and the stock market closing up more than 21 points the day before?"
Frank: "No, Tom, I didn't."