I was grocery shopping today and noticed a brand-new, no-holds-barred, all-inclusive Apple section in the electronics section of Carrefour, a giant French chain of SuperTarget-like stores. It's nicer than Wal-Mart but still very blue-collar (despite the great wine and cheese selections 
).
Anyway, my question is this: has Apple moved into these types of volume-oriented, mass consumption stores in the US since I left? And if not, does anyone have any knowledge or educated speculation on what this might mean in terms of Apple's marketing strategy? This is certainly new here, where Apple products are considered luxury items and where Macs hold a marketshare slightly above 3%. The prices at Carrefour are, of course, identical to those posted on Apple.fr.
I'm just having a hard time envisioning a work-a-day French person walking into Carrefour, straying from the seafood aisle and dropping 800 Euros on a shiny new ACD, no matter how good it looks sitting in that new display case...
).Anyway, my question is this: has Apple moved into these types of volume-oriented, mass consumption stores in the US since I left? And if not, does anyone have any knowledge or educated speculation on what this might mean in terms of Apple's marketing strategy? This is certainly new here, where Apple products are considered luxury items and where Macs hold a marketshare slightly above 3%. The prices at Carrefour are, of course, identical to those posted on Apple.fr.
I'm just having a hard time envisioning a work-a-day French person walking into Carrefour, straying from the seafood aisle and dropping 800 Euros on a shiny new ACD, no matter how good it looks sitting in that new display case...