Multiple Simply Mac Stores Shutting Down Across the U.S.

[mduser63]

Huh. Simply Mac started here in Utah. I guess I missed that they had been bought by GameStop and expanded nationwide. I thought they were still a Utah-only thing.

For what it's worth, they were the newest third-party reseller to start up around here. It's really just them and Expercom now, as far as I know. There have been plenty of third-party Apple resellers that have closed down in the last ~10 years, including two within walking distance of my house. Even as Apple's popularity and sales have exploded, it has been harder for third-party stores to hang on, I guess.

 

[FelixDerKater]

When's the last time you bought a computer?

 

[rickdollar]

Simply Mac has the worst service of any retailer I've ever visited. I've been in 4 times in 3 years. Every time is a slap in the face.... and I've worked retail more years than I'd like to admit so I'm very kind and respectful to retail employees. They are the only "Apple Store" within 3 hours of where I live. Fortunately, these days, Apple stuff can be bought anywhere.
If their other stores are as bad as the one near me they deserve to go out of business. Good riddance.

 

[Tech198]

Glad to see Australia did something first for a change .(even though it's the wrong end of the scale.)

 

[cocky jeremy]

I can't speak for PlayStation but Microsoft has made multiable moves signaling that they won't have a disk drive in the next gen Xbox.

They've apparently loved the taste they've gotten of losing to Sony then. Areas with bad internet = automatically PS5 (or whatever it'll be)

 

[Gnary]

Look them up on Glassdoor.com. It's not often you see a company so thoroughly hated by its own employees.

Allow me to add that they do NOT represent most independent Apple-authorized resellers and service providers.* From what I hear, SimplyMac was fine when it was a small business with couple of locations in the Salt Lake City area. It's when they got bought out by Game Stop and turned into a national chain that things went down the toilet FAST.

(* I may be biased by the fact that I own one.)

It's on the internet it must be true! But for real, I used to work for them, the upper management seemed to be only determined by who buddied up the best to those in the inner circle. We did good work, and the community loved us, but the staff is paid minimum, expected to know MORE than an Apple sales rep, and treated pretty poorly by the company. These stores ARE servicing areas in dire need but the company is poorly structured.

 

[Carnegie]

I'd never even heard of this chain. I can't recall seeing any marketing whatsoever, and they purport to have stores in my state.

After a quick look at their specific locations, it looks they were trying to position themselves to be a closer alternative to the local Apple stores for people in the hinterlands. Seems like a legit strategy, but these suburban/remote locations also have a bunch of other non-Apple places to get Apple stuff (Best Buy, etc). Distinguishing themselves might have been a hard sell.

I'd never heard of them until recently when I called an Apple Store trying to get an appointment to have a repair done. Somehow I got transferred to Apple customer service and, when they couldn't find a timely appointment for me at the Apple Store I wanted, they encouraged me to go to a Simply Mac location which was a little closer to me. It was still about an hour away, but as you suggest it was located where it would have been a bit more convenient for me.

 

[mtnDewFTW]

No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.

Yeah because no one owns external hard drives and we live in a world where people would rather put 100CDs in their house rather than getting 4x3TB HDDs. /s

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

GameStop needs all those retail locations back under its main brand so it can sell Nintendo Switches at them.

 

[Art Mark]

I've bought several things from the local one and traded in an old MacBook for credit on an iPad Purchase. But I have two Apple stores pretty much the same distance (maybe 20 minutes) and the Apple stores are just nicer and better stocked. I suspect between Apple stores and Amazon and discounters it's a very tough market to make a profit in.

 

[Thegrindstone]

I've never been in a Simply Mac - can anyone comment on the quality of their stores/service?

I worked at Simply Mac for 3 years as technician and experienced many of their stores. The stores were often understaffed and the store level employees generally tried their very best to deliver top notch service while top management made company wide decisions that consistently made that difficult. There were decisions made regarding service policies that seemed strange or outrageous, but were due to ridiculous metrics set by Apple.

 

[Rafagon]

No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.

And Internet speeds won’t increase? You think they’ve stagnated and will just stay where they are?

There was a time not too long ago when new versions of OS X were distributed on DVD. I’m sure we didn’t think then that entire OS upgrades would become digital downloads as quickly as they did.

 

[Thegrindstone]

I can only speak for the one in my hometown, but I was very not impressed. I had to go about an iPhone 5 battery replacement program and they were clueless, ran some kinda BS diagnostics and said they couldn't do it and that I should come back in a week to check the diagnostics again.
Yeah no more of that. I went to the Genius Bar, and it was done no questions asked.

It is a quite common for Authorized Service Providers to be misunderstood and misjudged in service situations. At a Genius Bar, Apple can decide to do whatever it wants to. ASPs have very strict rules and Apple will bill them for parts used "incorrectly" on repairs. The profit margin is terrible for non Apple stores and so they cannot afford to be as generous as Apple is

 

[minik]

I'm not surprised. Last year I had an iMac that wouldn't powered on, it's an institutional purchase and under AppleCare. I called the Apple EDU support line and they couldn't get me any on-site repair service. In the past, Apple worked with the local Apple authorized service provider and sent a guy out to repair any desktop on the spot. It is the Seattle-metro area with at least two third party stores within 10 miles, but I had to carry the iMac to an Apple Store for an in-warranty repair.

The person at Apple even suggested me to sign up the self-servicing account program.

 

[mlody]

I have 5 Apple stores and 1 authorized reseller within less than 20 miles radius from where I live so no wonder I never heard of this store chain.

 

[superman23]

i havent had a problem with my Simply Mac. it was called something else till a couple years ago, too. I've had my iphone battery replaced under recall while i waited, traded in a broken macbook pro, got a new macbook pro same day, bought an ipad. To me it hasnt been that different than an Apple store. I never ever go to the Apple Store 70 miles away

 

[CloneNode71]

Any increases in game sizes will be met with increased storage capabilities so I don't see it going any other way - just as how music is predominantly digital now.

Remember if storage is expensive for us, it's expensive for those who create physical media too, so it is unlikely to be the case that consumer storage affordability is dwarfed by media size in the future.

I think they meant more in terms of the time it take to download. That's how I took it.
[doublepost=1484887125][/doublepost]

Look them up on Glassdoor.com. It's not often you see a company so thoroughly hated by its own employees.

Allow me to add that they do NOT represent most independent Apple-authorized resellers and service providers.* From what I hear, SimplyMac was fine when it was a small business with couple of locations in the Salt Lake City area. It's when they got bought out by Game Stop and turned into a national chain that things went down the toilet FAST.

(* I may be biased by the fact that I own one.)

As a former store manager of simply mac that was with the company when we had 8 store and stayed to the point of 80 stores, you are exactly right. The currently leadership (HY, TA, JE, and GL) have all but destroyed this company with their super egos and inability to lead with inspiration. Instead, they resort to fear tactics, nepotism, and the removal of anyone with differing opinions. The company took a huge shift downward when PeachMac leaders started usurping the roles of faithful Simply Mac employees. It's unfortunate that hundreds of my friends are about to lose their jobs, but this is what happens when sociopaths are placed in charge of businesses like these.
[doublepost=1484887376][/doublepost]

It is a quite common for Authorized Service Providers to be misunderstood and misjudged in service situations. At a Genius Bar, Apple can decide to do whatever it wants to. ASPs have very strict rules and Apple will bill them for parts used "incorrectly" on repairs. The profit margin is terrible for non Apple stores and so they cannot afford to be as generous as Apple is

As a former store manager of Simply Mac, one who was with the company when we were private and only left a few months ago, I can speak to the likelihood of this commenters experience. The level of high expectation around service knowledge and accuracy has drastically dropped in the 3 years since GameStop purchased my company and forced us to expand and acquire other ASPs and Apple Specialists. This has created thousands of similar experiences across the country.
[doublepost=1484887583][/doublepost]

That's terrible though. Apple needs to remember that long before they had stores that places like Simply Mac and others sold their products.

This is not true. Apple has pulled away from Simply Mac due to our inability to train our service teams across the country to actually perform service with accuracy and care. I am a former store manager of Simply Mac that left just a few months ago due to many reasons that are contributing to this demise. Apple Inc is in no way responsible for my company's failure.

 

[mryingster]

Story time! I worked at Simply Mac when I was going to college in 2007, just after the iPhone was announced. It was a mix of fun and super frustrating. It was great being able to talk to customers, find solutions, and hang out with Apple enthusiasts. But there were some downsides...

There were two main problems. First was corporate's attitude.

• Corporate management was numbers driven (They were a cell-phone company). It's not surprising that the bottom line was important, but it was annoying because we had to look like an Apple store, but up-sell the customers with things they didn't need like a sleazy company. There was a lot of pressure to sell AppleCare and MobileMe. Headphones were also a huge item that we marked up 500%. A lot of time customer didn't need these things.
  
• If we didn't meet our monthly revenue quotas, we would be let go. This happened to 3 co-workers while I worked there (I only stayed for 4 months)
  
• Corporate knew Christmas Eve was a big sales day, and so they wouldn't let anyone take it off, and would only give us two days off for Christmas. I quit because that's just crazy. The store manager ended up letting everyone have Christmas Eve off and ran the store by himself. He quit the next week because of his frustration with corporate.

The other issue was Apple's restrictions and Prices.

• SimplyMac could only mark up for Apple hardware a whopping two percent because Apple's wholesale prices were high.
• We weren't allowed to participate in sales or educational promotions (Which is stupid because we were in a college town). Many times I'd tell customer's that they'd be better off getting the educational discount on Apple's website.
  
• Apple wouldn't allow us to sell iPhones. Customers kept wanting to see the iPhone when it was released. Our store manager actually bought two phones on his own dime to put on display even though we weren't allowed to sell them.

All in all, I have a lot of good memories while working there, but they were all from interacting with the Apple enthusiastic staff (aside from that one guy who had never seen a non-windows computer before. Ugh). Between SimplyMac's corporate policies and Apple's restriction, I'm actually shocked that they are still in business at all.

 

[CloneNode71]

I've never been in a Simply Mac - can anyone comment on the quality of their stores/service?

Terrible these days. I am a former Store Manager. I was with the company when we were private and had only 8 stores. I left the company a few months ago right before this started happening. We actually closed 6 stores this past summer, I'm surprised MacRumors is just getting ahold of this info.

When GameStop bought Simply Mac, they forced us to expand at an unsustainable rate and part of that expansion involved buying other ASPs from across the country, MacAuthority (Nashville based), PeachMac (Florida Based), and The Mac Store (Pacific Northwest). PeachMac was just a few months away from closing their doors when we bought them. This was a closed books deal orchestrated by GameStop. Simply Mac wouldn't not have bought them, if we had known the state of their company. Simply Mac took on several millions of dollars of debt with the PeachMac acquisition. We were a zero debt company prior to this forced, and very poor, decision.

Fast forward a little over a year. PeachMac leadership has almost fully taken control of all corporate, regional, and district level positions in Simply Mac and now doors are closing left and right, NPS is at its lowest ever, profits are flushing, hundred of my dear friends are losing their jobs in the next week.

Do not be fooled, this is not Apple's fault.

 

[LucasLand]

i went to simply mac just once. a few days after iPhone 7 was released to buy one. all the guy said to me was to go on apple.com and order one. i left and never went back. whats the point of going to a store if the bozo just going to tell me to order it from apple website.

 

[CloneNode71]

Huh. Simply Mac started here in Utah. I guess I missed that they had been bought by GameStop and expanded nationwide. I thought they were still a Utah-only thing.

For what it's worth, they were the newest third-party reseller to start up around here. It's really just them and Expercom now, as far as I know. There have been plenty of third-party Apple resellers that have closed down in the last ~10 years, including two within walking distance of my house. Even as Apple's popularity and sales have exploded, it has been harder for third-party stores to hang on, I guess.

When we were a utah only thing, we were great. GameStop and the current Simply Mac leadership (I say "current" because our true leaders were removed by GameStop and replaced with puppets about 2 years ago), have all but destroyed the company I once loved.

 

[Johnny907]

Gamestop's days are numbered. Digital distribution will take over within 5 years...

Nope. I've seen some zero day patches that weighed in at 35-40GB. Not a problem for me as I'm on a 1gig connection with a 1TB cap , but before I upgraded I had a 250GB cap, which is very common especially in smaller towns and rural areas. Until broadband improves in this country, physical media in gaming isn't going anywhere.

 

[LucasLand]

i think apple had a back room deal with gamestop to get rid of simply mac and other stores over a long span of time. some crooked executive is making bank over this closure

 

[CloneNode71]

I am a former Store Manager. I was with the company when we were private and had only 8 stores. I left the company a few months ago right before this started happening. We actually closed 6 stores this past summer, I'm surprised MacRumors is just getting ahold of this info.

When GameStop bought Simply Mac, they forced us to expand at an unsustainable rate and part of that expansion involved buying other ASPs from across the country, MacAuthority (Nashville based), PeachMac (Florida Based), and The Mac Store (Pacific Northwest). PeachMac was just a few months away from closing their doors when we bought them. This was a closed books deal orchestrated by GameStop. Simply Mac wouldn't have bought themif we had known the state of their company. Simply Mac took on several millions of dollars of debt with the PeachMac acquisition. We were a zero debt company prior to this forced, and very poor, decision.

Fast forward a little over a year. PeachMac leadership has almost fully taken control of all corporate, regional, and district level positions in Simply Mac and now doors are closing left and right, NPS is at its lowest ever, profits are flushing, and hundreds of my dear friends are losing their jobs in the next week.

Do not be fooled, this is not Apple's fault

 

[Analog Kid]

It is not clear why there is mixed information being shared about the store closures, but it appears that only a select number of stores are being shuttered at this time.

It's abundantly clear-- there's an audience out there primed by the entitlement brigade to blame Apple for everything, so if you don't want to field complaints yourself you blame them and people just swallow it. Dash tried it, Airpod Finder tried it, Pluggable tried it, etc, etc. Just like some people are willing to blame gummint for all evil, or big tobacco, or Angela Lansbury, if you tell a certain kind of person that Apple done it, they'll just nod and say "knew it".