Apple Store

The Apple Retail Store^[1] is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc., dealing in computers and consumer electronics. The stores sell Macintosh personal computers, software, iPods, iPads, iPhones, third-party accessories, and other consumer electronics such as Apple TV. Many stores feature a Theatre for presentations and workshops and a Studio for training with Apple products; all stores offer a Genius Bar for technical support and repairs, as well as free workshops available to the public. Under the leadership of Ron Johnson, the former Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, the Apple Stores have been responsible for "[turning] the boring computer sales floor into a sleek playroom filled with gadgets".^[2] As of November 2011^[update], Apple had opened 358 stores worldwide.^[3]

Description

Many stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has since built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. Flagship stores have opened in Palo Alto, Boston, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, Osaka, London, Sydney, Perth, Montreal, Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich, Paris, Beijing, Glasgow, Honolulu, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The largest Apple Store in the world is in Covent Garden in London, United Kingdom; the largest in North America is in Boston.

Each store is designed to suit the needs of the location and regulatory authorities. Apple has received numerous architectural awards for its store designs, particularly its midtown Manhattan location on Fifth Avenue,^[5][6] whose glass cube was designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.^[7]

Several Apple Stores feature glass staircases,^[8] which for multi-level stores was originally intended to attract customers to visit the upper floors, and some even feature a glass bridge. The New York Times wrote that these features were part of then-CEO Steve Jobs' extensive attention to detail. The first glass staircase received a design patent in 2002 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with Jobs' name first, followed by several others,^[9][10] while the staircase design itself received a design patent, and the complex glass and hardware system received a separate technical patent.^[11] Apple worked with architect Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and engineer Eckersley O’Callaghan Structural Design in designing the staircase.^[12][13]

The Apple Store in Regent Street, London, was the first to open in Europe in November 2004, and is the most profitable shop in London with the highest sales per square foot, taking £60,000,000 pa, or £2,000 per square foot.^[14] The Regent Street store was surpassed in size by the nearby Apple Store in Covent Garden, which is currently the biggest Apple store in the world.^[15]

Ron Johnson, Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011, was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, however he had had no control over the inventory in the stores. Instead, inventory is done company wide by then-COO and now CEO Tim Cook who has a background in supply-chain management.^{[16] [16]}

History

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, returned as interim CEO in 1997. According to Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs began a concerted campaign to help sales by improving the retail presentation of Macintosh computers. Even with new products launched under Job's watch like the iMac and the PowerBook G3 and an online store, Apple still relied heavily on big box computer and electronics stores for most of their sales. There, customers continued to deal with poorly trained and ill-maintained Mac sections which did not foster customer loyalty to Apple and nor did they help differentiate the Mac user-experience from Windows.^[17]

Jobs' first priority was ending almost every big box retailer's ties to the Apple, except for CompUSA who retained its Apple contract by agreeing to adopt Apple's "store within a store" concept. This required that approximately 15% of each CompUSA store would be set aside for Mac hardware and software (including non-Apple products) and would play host to a part-time Apple salesperson. However the "store within a store" approach was not successful in part because the Apple section was in the lowest-traffic area of CompUSA stores. Jobs and his executives saw that they didn't have enough control over the presentation of Apple products so they decided on creating an Apple retail store.^[18][19][17]

In 1999, Jobs personally recruited Millard Drexler to serve on Apple's board of directors, Drexler was the CEO of Gap Inc. whose explosive growth had ben attributed to retailing environments and marketing rather than its products or competitive prices. Drexler was one of the few directors who supported Jobs' retail stores initiative, the others on the board were skeptical as this would compete with their third party retailers, and also as Gateway, Inc. had struggled with its own stores. In 2000, Jobs hired Ron Johnson from Target, where he had been vice president of merchandising responsible for launching the Michael Graves line of consumer products that raised Target's image beyond that of just an upscale K-Mart. At Drexler's suggestion, Johnson then built a mock-up of an Apple store inside a warehouse near the company's headquarters in Cupertino.

Apple has since re-established ties with major big box retailers like Best Buy, as these chains have considerably more geographical reach than the existing network of Apple Stores. The relationship with Best Buy calls for the company to send Apple Solutions Consultants (ASCs) to train Best Buy employees to be familiar with Apple's product lineup and how Macs work.^[17][20]

The successful experience that Apple had with its retail stores has been applied to Disney stores, since Jobs was elected to that company's board of directors in 2006.^[21]

Design

The Apple Store design has resulted from the contributions of firms such as Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Eckersley O’Callaghan, Eight Inc., Gensler, and ISP Design, Inc., together with Apple's in-house design team. Eight Inc. had first been responsible for the unsuccessfuly CompUSA foray which was due to limited space and budget, but with the Apple retail store they had the freedom to come up with an approach that broadly resembled Gap Inc. stores.^[18][19]

Expansion and changes

On May 15, 2001, Jobs led a group of journalists from a hotel in Tysons Corner, Virginia, to Apple's first store in the second level of Tysons Corner Center for a commemorative press event.^[22] The first two Apple Stores opened on May 19 in Tysons Corner and the same day in Glendale, California at Glendale Galleria.^[23] The first Apple Store with the current layout and hardware (wood tables and stone flooring) opened in Pasadena, California. Apple opened its 200th store on October 26, 2007 in Gilbert, Arizona, 2,251 days after opening its Tysons Corner store.^[24]

Several publications and analysts predicted the failure of Apple Stores, based on sales made per square foot which was a standard metric in computer retail at the time. It was thought that because of the stores' diminutive size and non-aggressive sales team, Apple would succeed in presenting the Mac but fail in making a significant number of sales, despite the huge turnout for the Virginia store (7,700 in the first day purchases). However, Apple proved its critics wrong and by 2007 it ranked among the top retailers in the world. According to Fortune Magazine; "and not just the architecture. Saks, whose flagship store is down the street, generates sales of $362 per square foot a year. Best Buy stores turn $930 - tops for electronics retailers - while Tiffany & Co. takes in $2,666. Audrey Hepburn liked Tiffany's for breakfast, but at $4,032 per square foot, Apple is eating everyone's lunch".^[19]

Originally, Apple Stores contained a dedicated point of sale station. However, in 2006, Apple began introducing a new store layout and design with surgical-grade stainless steel walls and backlit signage. The new store design replaced the dedicated point of sale station with the handheld EasyPay system. A dedicated point of sale station still exists in most of these stores to facilitate transactions not paid for by credit card.^[25][26] The Regent Street store has more point of sale terminals than any other store. Only flagship stores and a few older locations have a dedicated point of sale; all other stores have a POS behind the Genius Bar. Apple has recently changed their EasyPay systems to operate on iPod Touch instead of the previous Windows-based system. The iPods feature a custom housing, the Infinite Peripherals Linēa-Pro barcode scanner and card reader, to allow the same transactions on the iPod.

On May 22, 2011, Apple replaced their acrylic displays that had information about the product with interactive iPad 2 displays, which add more information about the product like information about the specifications, comparisons and extended warranties.^[27] This transition from paper to intuitive touch displays was dubbed "Apple Store 2.0" by online blogs such as Engadget and Gizmodo.^[28]

Genius Bar

All Apple Stores feature a Genius Bar, where customers can receive technical advice or set up service and repair for their products. The Genius Bar provides software support for Mac OS X and hardware service on products that are not classified vintage or obsolete. However, in most cases the Geniuses will at least attempt to assist customers with older hardware.^[29] Originally, visitors to the Genius Bar were offered free Evian water. Apple dropped this amenity in February 2002.

To address increasing numbers of iPod customers at the Genius Bar, some new stores also feature an iPod Bar. First seen at the Ginza store in Tokyo, then at the New York locations, the iPod Bar has become a common feature at newly built stores.^[30]

Most new stores feature a station called The Studio, a Genius Bar-like setting where customers can meet with a "Creative" and receive help with projects ranging from organizing a photo album to music composition to film editing. Some of the older stores are being considered to carry a Studio in a future remodel, in some cases replacing the older theaters.

Store openings

Store openings have become special events among avid Mac users. Opening day attracts thousands of customers who line up early in the morning or even the night before. Most openings are accompanied by giveaways of prizes such as t-shirts and "lucky bags" at flagship store openings.^[31][32]

Locations

The first two Apple Stores opened in the United States in 2001 (see history above). In 2003, Apple expanded its operations into Japan, opening the first store outside of the United States. This was followed by the opening of stores in the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Australia, China, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain. In 2010 a major effort to expand sales in China was announced along with opening of a store in Shanghai.^[33] The first Apple Store in Hong Kong, being the 100th overseas store outside the United States opened on September 24, 2011, occupying Podium 1 and 2 of ifc mall.

Apple Company Store

The Apple Company Store is found on the Apple Campus in One Infinite Loop. This store is the original Apple Employee store, and is open to the public. The store does not sell any of Apple's computer or iPod lineups, and it does not provide on-site support or repairs. However, it is the only place where Apple T-Shirts, hats, and other such merchandise can be purchased.^[65] Apple products are on display here, and various software and accessories can be purchased as well.^[66]

Knockoffs

In July 2011, an American expatriate blogger who lives in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming reported on her discovery of what she called "the best ripoff store we had ever seen"—a fake Apple Store, complete with the glass exterior, wood display tables, winding staircase and large promotional posters found in legitimate Apple Stores, and with employees wearing lanyards and the same T-shirts as actual Apple Store employees.^[67] The Wall Street Journal reported that the store had "gotten widespread international attention for the remarkable lengths to which its proprietors seem to have gone to mimic the look and feel of a real Apple Store."^[68] Chinese law prohibits retailers from copying the look and feel of competitors' stores, but enforcement is lax.^[69]

According to the WSJ, unauthorized Apple resellers are found throughout China; the blogger's original post noted that two such stores were located within walking distance of the first knockoff, one of them with a misspelled sign reading "Apple Stoer".^[68] An employee of the first knockoff confirmed that the store was not one of the 13^[69] authorized Apple resellers in Kunming.^[67][68] In a follow-up report, Reuters indicated that local authorities in Kunming had closed two fake Apple stores in that city due to lack of official business permits, but allowed three other such stores to stay open, including the one that had attracted international attention.^[69] The operators of that store had applied for a reseller license from Apple.^[69] At the time of the report, only four legitimate Apple Stores had opened in China, with two in Beijing and two in Shanghai.^[68]

References

External links

• Apple (United States) - Apple Retail Store
• ifo Apple Store: News and information about store openings
• Virtual tour of Fifth Avenue Apple Store (Google Maps Street View)
• Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Website