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

[Bacillus]

Sure, but times change, and you can't roll the clock back. Apple are doing what any logical company in their position would do, and expanding their Apple Store experience as widely as possible.
If these stores were profitable then perhaps they'd stay in business. But it's entirely unclear, from what the article states, whether they were forced to shut because of Apple or the lack of business at these particular locations, or likely both.

What a sheer nonsense. "Any logical company" would use multiple outlets, also for the smaller customer in the smaller town. So not just oversized and overdesigned luxury houses that sprout from the shopping experience of $50 million compensated fashion oversensitive lady/lads.
It cannot produce reliable supplies, cables and power outlets so everybody needs to visit them multiple times a year at the most unforseeable moments.
The Bentley of the mobile universe must get its feet on the ground.

 

[ILikeAllOS]

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

On PC it already has! Everyone just uses Steam to buy their games.
A bonus is that now you can also refund a game through Steam, which you couldn't do with physical media.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

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

On PC where game retailers like GameStop don't have a stranglehold on the hardware vendors physical media is pretty much dead. The only reason why physical media is still alive and well on consoles is console manufacturers are dependent on specialist game retailers to push hardware. Game retailers hate digital downloads with such a passion that when Sony released the download only PSP Go, many retailers simply refused to carry it.

Also, games today aren't even close to 100 GB in size. They're 50GB tops due to this being the maximum capacity of older dual and single layer type blu-ray discs consoles use (even the WiiU uses a slightly off-standard blu-ray discs).

 

[4118478]

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.)

Found the owner of ExperCom lol
[doublepost=1484911338][/doublepost]

Found the owner of ExperCom lol

Also don't forget to mention that you closed one of your stores for the same reasons...

 

[xnu]

Always a positive sign about your platform when retailers shut down. Of course retail is being disrupted by online sales, but it is unfortunate the Mac platform has remained stagnant. Forums full of woulda, coulda, shoulda. Oh well going to play with my touch bar now, volume up, volume down, volume up.

 

[jlc1978]

Know this is way off topic but...Hmmm...and what sort of physical media will a 100GB game be distributed on then???

Quad density Blu Ray

 

[Franshans]

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.

Most people don't have the privilege of broadband internet access so there will be a need for physical media for a very long time.

 

[jlc1978]

Always a positive sign about your platform when retailers shut down. Of course retail is being disrupted by online sales, but it is unfortunate the Mac platform has remained stagnant. Forums full of woulda, coulda, shoulda. Oh well going to play with my touch bar now, volume up, volume down, volume up.

Apple only retailers have some unique challenges. First, Apple has trained its customers to expect an Apple store like experience, which is expensive to replicate if you don't have Apple's cash behind you. Second, they have no exclusive territory so a customer can go to Best Buy, Target, an Apple store or the internet to get the same items, often a a lower price. Even Walmart carries a number of Apple products, so unless a store can get enough high margin sales and service it will be tough to succeed. At the Mac end there may be fewer competitors but the margins are razor thin, so it's not like a store can survive on selling Macs alone.

 

[shaunp]

Rebrand - SimplySurface ....

 

[62tele]

Apple has become so drunken with its own success that it forgot how it got there.

How did they get there? I remember when you only find Apple at Comp USA stores in many locales. It seems to me that Mac created their own success with their retail locations and their online network of authorized resellers. Apple was left for dead 20 years ago or so.

Apple is a Mess sad to here . their retail locations really like going to a clothing store these days .

How is Apple is "mess"? They are wildly successful in everything they offer: phones, tablets, laptops, desktops. Their profitability is nearly unmatched.

This is part of Apple's consolidation of control of its products.
ie. No one else, but Apple is allowed to service Apple products (at least according to Apple).
_________________________________________________________________________
Of cause, one needs to remember that many third parties (non-Apple Store/non-AASP) can perform repairs for about half of what Apple charges.

Apple lists Authorized Service providers other than themselves on their website.

 

[Carnegie]

I just looked at Gamestop's annual report for 2015. It indicates that between the fall of 2012, when Gamestop acquired a major stake in Simply Mac, and the end of 2015, Simply Mac expanded from 8 locations to 76 locations. It seems it may have spread its seeds a little too far too fast.

 

[itsamacthing]

I always prefer to buy direct from Apple

 

[amegicfox]

I guess they didn't want to display watchbands and emojis cardboard in their windows

 

[chiefsilverback]

• 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.

My mother works for a big retailer in the UK and they have a zero vacation policy around Christmas and it makes perfect sense. Someone has to work, as you say it's the biggest sales period of the year, so how do you decide who does and doesn't work. By saying "everybody works" it removes that issue entirely.

 

[Rocketman]

Simply Mac probably has a NDA with Apple. The landlord does not. They are probably rolling up the stores in a wave so they can transport excess inventory to the higher volume stores as they close down the lowest volume stores first. That explains why the short list in in smaller states at first. One wonders what they do with all that retail display hardware. At the very end I suspect the last inventory will end up in Pick N Save (you know what now).

 

[NachoGrande]

Simply, no macs

 

[scottrngr]

Not impressed with the South Dakota store. Every time I went there, I knew more than the employees about the products then they did.

 

[Return Zero]

Apple has become so drunken with its own success that it forgot how it got there.

I've never heard of Simply Mac. However, I have purchased all of my Macs from different locations: CompUSA, a university computer store, online from Apple, retail Apple store, and Best Buy.

My best overall experience was at the university store. Online was of course the most convenient/easy. Best Buy had the lowest prices (walked out with a brand new baseline 2014 iMac for $747!!). CompUSA had the most knowledgeable and helpful staff (Apple retail employees can be surprisingly deficient in this area sometimes, and they're always running around trying to help 50 different people).

All this is to say, I really don't like Apple retail stores one bit, except for the fact that they look pretty.

 

[dwaltwhit]

If Apple ended the agreement, wouldn't every store close? Also the competing stories: a mall sends out a notice saying apple pulled out; the owner of the retailer says we are closing some unprofitable stores. Which one is more credible?

 

[AdonisSMU]

Simply, no macs

What do we need a mac store for since Apple is stopping mac production?

 

[doctor-don]

Apple has become so drunken with its own success that it forgot how it got there.

What does the closing of stores have to do with Apple?

This is part of Apple's consolidation of control of its products.

ie. No one else, but Apple is allowed to service Apple products (at least according to Apple).

_________________________________________________________________________

Of cause, one needs to remember that many third parties (non-Apple Store/non-AASP) can perform repairs for about half of what Apple charges.

The only reason a PowerBook was taken to CompUSA for repair in 2004 and 2005 was the proximity of the store. The notebook was replaced with a new notebook when the repairs would have cost as much as a new notebook. What happened should have been covered by Apple, but the folks at Apple put off doing a repair with suggestions to fix the start problem that extended the life past the warranty period. Luckily, the purchase had been made using a credit card that extended the warranty, and a check for the repair amount was forthcoming and used to buy a replacement (December 2005) - which had to have the battery replaced immediately (under an Apple program - and it came 2 days after speaking with Apple).

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

In north Georgia, the Simply Mac stores have 4 locations. None is on the closing list.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

It doesn't help stores like this when Apple sells products on Amazon

Apple doesn't sell stuff on Amazon, Amazon and other sellers sell Apple stuff on Amazon.

But Apple has had its online store for decades. Hard to blame Apple when these retail stores started up relatively recently, and when Apple's B&M presence was fairly wide.

Truth is there isn't much room for small Apple retailers. Consumers prefer the large showroom where they can browse and discover without a salesperson breathing down their neck or constantly eyeballing them.

 

[69650]

It must be hard being a Mac retailer with frustratingly long periods between hardware updates, the Mac AppStore for software sales and the lack of new Mac peripherals.

 

[BuffaloTF]

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

Buy it digitally or get a disc... you need to install the full thing either way. Why bother with the trouble of having to change a disc with it already on your hard drive anyhow?

 

[Carnegie]

If Apple ended the agreement, wouldn't every store close? Also the competing stories: a mall sends out a notice saying apple pulled out; the owner of the retailer says we are closing some unprofitable stores. Which one is more credible?

It seems doubtful to me that Apple would be ending its relationship with Simply Mac, not unless they've found that Simply Mac is overall doing a poor job when it comes to customer happiness and hurting the Apple brand. Otherwise it would seem to Apple's advantage to have stores like Simply Mac in areas where its own Apple Stores aren't close enough or convenient enough for would-be customers.

I think it's more likely that Simply Mac's business model is a difficult one to make work, and they need to do a better job figuring out which locations will be profitable and which won't. They perhaps need to not expand so fast and pass on more locations which have marginal potential. As it is they seem to be trying to walk a fine line where they locate many stores outside of areas which would be desirable enough for Apple to open or already has its own stores (e.g., because of population density), but still in areas which are desirable enough for Simply Mac stores to work.

This is made more difficult by having to compete with the likes of Best Buy and Target (and others) for mindshare and sales, especially among more casual Apple customers. And since they were apparently still a very small chain up until about four years ago (with just 8 locations), they haven't had time in most areas to build significant brand loyalty or even brand awareness.

That all adds up to difficulty in making things work and a likelihood to need to make the kinds of adjustments - as Gamestop refers to them, "right-sizing" - that we're perhaps seeing here.