It was 2 o’clock in the morning but in the subterranean retailing mecca in Midtown Manhattan, otherwise known as the Apple store, it might as well have been midafternoon.
Even late at night, there are customers on the floor of the Apple store in Midtown Manhattan. Apple now makes about 20 percent of its revenue from its brick-and-mortar stores.
And through the night, cheerful sales staff stayed busy, ringing up customers at the main checkout counter and on hand-held devices in an uninterrupted stream of brick-and-mortar commerce.
The party inside that store and in 203 other Apple stores around the world is one reason the company’s stock is up nearly 135 percent for the year. By contrast, high-flying Google is up about 52 percent, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq index is up 12 percent.
The article moves beyond the catchphrase designed to suck in both fanboyz and Apple haters – “aura enchants the faithful”. That’s worth a small snicker. The important bit is that Apple derives 20% of their income from their retail stores.
Read the article. I think you’ll appreciate that they’ve not only contributed to technology design in an industry overwhelmed with outdated concepts – Apple has added to the body of contemporary retail merchandising.
Apple stores generate sales at the rate of about $4,000 per square foot a year…
As other electronics makers like Dell, Nokia and Sony still struggle to find the right retail formula, Apple seems to have perfected it.
A measurable portion of retail success is founded on recreational shopping. Getting non-geeks into their stores is as important as anything else. The result of that process is Apple leading more consumers into appreciation of what computing technology now offers in access to information and entertainment.
“Getting non-geeks into their stores is as important as anything else.”
Basically it’s all about attracting the naive with shiny objects.
#1 – isn’t that the American way?
I can see you two never worked retail. What would you presume retailers do? Mail little cardboard punchcards to consumers to make their choices?
Cripes. Welcome to IBM.
Move along..nothing to see here. Didn’t P.T. Barnum perfect this method of selling decade’s ago? Bright, shiny, loud,and there’s one born every minute….oh, and knowing when to slink out of town..watch for it…^_^
What’s the difference between a man in an Apple store and a woman buying the latest “Paris Hilton” perfume?
(I couldn’t think of a difference either)
Yeah, what’s up with that? All stores should be cinder block and windowless. Screw aesthetics. Screw architecture. Bring on the utilitarianism!
#3
And I presume you’re one of those retailers who spend the rest of the day looking over the shoulders of the consumers indirectly harrasing them whether to buy the f**king product already or making it look as if you’re keeping a tab on a thief?
You Vistards just can’t get over that you bought a shitty product so you have to bash Apple. Oh wel, my Apple stock is up.
Vistards? these guys are still using XP… you young kids and your new fangled operating systems. And when is Apple going to learn we don’t trust anyone that offers new ideas and good customer service.
Marketing is everything! You walk into a Apple store and you want to buy something. Just ask yourself how many times you did not buy something because the store was a mess or some sales person ignored you.
Plus, you can get your hands on stuff and try it.
The name ‘Apple’ in the headline, ten comments so far, and not Peep One outta pedro. That’s spooky.
Think his archnemesis Steverino finally ran him to earth and he’s now on his way to Gitmo? ;P
Ah…now we get to the real point..it’s not the products here…it’s the owners (#8). Well, I’d expect them to be happy..^_^. And rush along with those “new ideas and good customer service”. I had my Archos 20G music player a good year before that great idea of the IPod, (and still use it)..and guess what? I don’t have to send it in to apple to change the battery at their “nominal fee”..as it takes only 4 off the shelf AA rechargeable..about 12 bucks at full retail…and also didn’t have to install “special” software that tells me what rights I have to my files, and what I can and can’t do with them. It’s an effin’ USB hard drive..how hard can it be to use by anyone who’s sat behind a computer for more than a half hour? Don’t let reality over glitz hit you on the way out…. Oh. but I forgot. Mac people get lost if Stevie doesn’t tell them the way they should do things, and then as a courtesy makes sure that that’s the only way. Here’s some shiny signs..this way to the Egress..it will be easy..no thought necessary..trust me…have I ever lied to you?
Shin – on behalf of pedro, I’d like to thank you for filling in for him at such short notice.
hahaha..but not for long it seems…^_^. Anyway, you’re welcome..the rabidness of the Mac crowd just gets under my skin. I even admit that most Apple products look good, and most of their modifications of existing technology have made them easier to use for the average person, which is not per se a bad thing. But creative? Innovative? Good customer service? Not going to let that float by without a swipe. Those first 2 adjectives only work if you are talking about the art majors on staff, or more likely contracted to work on the specific item. There has been nothing new in terms of technology from Apple in..you know, I can’t find a good example..it’s been to long.
Great marketers though…
I’m not Apple hater or fan boy…but claiming
Apple doesn’t have anything truly new, technologically inovative is nonsense.
No one had anything even vaguely like the iPhone before them, nothing even CLOSE to that. Show me ANY cell phone browser that worked half as well. Maybe you don’t consider a cell phone browser important, but that WAS new/better tech…better than anyone else had ever pulled off before.
And the one piece iMac? Yes, 3 years after the fact Dell now has their rip off (XPS One), but when the iMac first came out, did anyone have a one piece near that price with the same power/quality? And the Dell can’t run Linux, OS X and XP like the iMac.
The OS. I’ve seen some great Linux desk tops that do similar graphics to OS X, but NO commercial OS comes close to the look at the same speed/power of OS X. You can sure bitch about it being TOO pretty or too glossy, but that’s a matter of style. In pure tech achievement, Microsoft can’t technically make their OS look like that without using massively more power (Vista). So whether or not you LIKE the look of OS X, the fact is they pulled it off using a fraction of the power that Vista needs.
I’m give you another example of where Apple was right and leading the pack, tiny as it is…the floppy drive. The original iMac CRT model was one of the very first PCs to simply toss out the floppy drive. At the time is was a bit controversial. This was before the ubiquities USB thumb drive remember. Some people thought it ‘subtracted’ from the iMac potential. But they were right. NOW, years later, no major manufacture ships a PC with a floppy drive, no software is sold on floppies. Apple was among the very first to recognize this and design ahead of the pack, creating a simpler stream lined computer by jettisoning what they saw as useless tech. That’s not JUST marketing, but sensing where tech is going, which is a KEY KEY KEY component of success in the tech field.
Apple succeeds because of a COMBINATION of marketing, without which the best tech company can still die (endless examples)…and good (if not best) tech. You don’t have to be the bleeding edge in tech (Alienware PCs), you just have to have good useful well marketed tech. You’d THINK that would be easy…but the tech landscape is littered with the skeletons of companies that either couldn’t market their products, or missed the mark technologically (Palm is heading that way sadly and I LOVE my Treo 755, but the Folio? What the f**k was that)
“I’m give you another example of where Apple was right and leading the pack, tiny as it is…the floppy drive. The original iMac CRT model was one of the very first PCs to simply toss out the floppy drive. ”
Well, not only first to eliminate it, they were the first to have it.
At the time, if you remember, the 8″ floppy had been almost completely supplanted by the 5.25″ minifloppy. Then Sony, at Apple’s behest, comes up with the 3.5″ microfloppy.
Memory is tricky, but I also seem to remember, first computers with optical drives, USB and FireWire (which they developed) standard. And FireWire 800. All that besides the first windowed GUI, first mouse, first laser printer, etc, etc…
No, no innovation there. Bunch ‘o me-tooers and copycats. Pathetic, it is.
I just bought a 17″ Macbook Pro. My first Apple PC. I’m an IT professional and have four Windows PCs of my own. I thought I’d try using a Mac to record my podcast after hearing about how good they were supposed to be for that “creative” sort of thing. After three months I’ve discovered it’s just another box, just prettier. It has the same guts as my Dell XPS and with Bootcamp it runs Vista really great. I like not having to worry about the virus protection while running Leopard, but I don’t find it any more reliable than my Windows machines. I’ve gotten the “endless beachball” a few times that required a power button to cure, and I don’t run anything but Apple software so far. Jobs has done a great job of packaging the mystique. I’ve even heard fanboys compare Apples to BMWs. I really love the Macbook design, but I don’t feel as cool using it as I do while driving my 330i. It’s just a nice box and Apple does a great job of marketing it.
pedro – surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that every time Apple comes out with a single-unit microcomputer, starting with the Lisa, the copycats rush out lame imitations? And how most if not all are sales flops, not to mention usually lame computers, too?
Apple stock now at 200 points; imagine how much more it could be worth if they actually had something customers want…! 🙂
It’s amazing how so many seem vested in the company (may actually be vested..^_^).
Here’s something it may be wise to remember. Just because it’s the first time you saw something, doesn’t mean it’s never been done before. For most of what is posted above..2 words. Xerox PARC.
Steve certainly has a great eye, and the confidence to follow his belief that “this is what people want”. But..he is willing to cast his own customers by the wayside if it’s easier to drop a technology to add a new one than to try and find a way of including his current users as well. Many of the mentions above mention proprietary tech, locking you into apple for parts and labor. One of the comment mention how a portable from Mac can run linux and OSX and XP, while the Dell (I think) can’t. Just for fun, anyone of the Mac boys care to answer the question of why the Dell can’t? Some inherent problem or weakness in the DELL? Or merely the fact that Apple has locked up one of the OS’s to only run on their machines?
Steve is a salesman. He has always been a salesman. He is a good salesman. One of the best. He skims the market looking for the people with the most disposable income, looks at what they like now, extrapolates what they will like, and gives it to them in a proprietary package at a premium price, which keeps out the punters and allows his customers to feel superior to the point that their whole lives seem to depend upon how apple is viewed by anyone else. He keeps his products perceived as being better by limiting what his users can do with them, controlling the hardware and the software pipelines, and the expandability (mostly none) of his products. If you try and do something that he doesn’t like..even after you have paid his premium prices, he will turn on you in a second and destroy your device remotely. Too bad he doesn’t care about you like you care about him. But why would he..he’s a salesman, and we all know what salesman really do, don’t we?
#16 Jack, it is likely that only apple has the marketing skill and fan base to make a success out of tossing a handheld touch screen (with a beautifully revised GUI) on a cell phone and charging upwards of $300 more dollars for it than anyone else could, and making it a success. I honestly can’t think of any other company that not only could get away with it, but make people feel good about paying all that extra dough,while still locking them in to one of the most..umm….interesting should keep me out of court…wireless multinationals on the planet. Still..just marketing.
You’ll have to explain to me the difference between a one piece and a laptop. Is it because it doesn’t fold up? I honestly haven’t payed any attention, just another form factor.
OS X and it’s speed and power. Well..just about any OS running on a machine that is optimized for it, will work much better than an OS running on a machine that has to deal with components and software chosen by the end user or a 3rd party vendor. Nothing new there. Everyone knows that I would have thought. You can get your toast much faster from a toaster than a toaster oven. Probably better done also, and quite possible from a more elegant form factor. Over the course of a little time though…the toaster over is a lot more versatile.
#17 Immediately making all the software they had sold you previously unload able…or did they allow you to replace it some how at media cost? Eh, it was probably time for you to get an upgraded version of it anyway…whether or not their was one.
#18 I more or less agree with this one, although I would assume I think less of a combination than you do, and more marketing based. But look at the vehemence of response. I certainly wouldn’t expect to hear anyone defending their brand of dishwasher with this much passion..and much as they would not be fast to admit it….apple is clearly heading towards the major appliance market more than a bleeding edge tech one, and a maturing industry needs that. They are extremely important in raising mainstream awareness as to what is available. It’s really only the cultists historical revisionism that rankles…^_^
Stock price equals quality and technological superiority. Interesting argument…^_^ I’ll check back with you when they make a perceived mis-step and the wall street mob plays it’s usual game of follow the leader and it drops down to a hundred then, eh? Will that make them only half the company they are now? You don’t think the investors have any interest in them besides being a current cash cow do you?
“the expandability (mostly none) of his products. If you try and do something that he doesn’t like..even after you have paid his premium prices, he will turn on you in a second and destroy your device remotely.”
I tremble, all my waking hours, at a vision I just can’t escape: Steverino sitting like Dr. Evil before a huge bank of monitors, watching Mac users everywhere (those iSight cameras are not there for looks, you know!) The minute he sees one connect a non-Apple peripheral to one of his babies, he presses this huge red button in front of him, reducing the hapless would-be traitor’s Mac to a smoldering pile of debris in an instant!
You live a vivid fantasy life, there, Shin. 🙂
…er, uh, ah, I uh, er….
…about that nonexistent expandablity, Shin. Would you care to tell me exactly which of the following that Mac users are denied?
FibreChannel
SCSI wide / fast / optical
ATA serial / parallel
MIDI
USB 2.0
FireWire 400 / 800
HP-IB
RS-232
Parallel (Centronics)
Analog audio – balanced / unbalanced
Digital audio to 10.2 channels, to 384kHz/48-bit float
S-Video
Composite Video
Component Video
HDMI
Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless-N
No doubt I missed some.
So, what was it exactly that Steve & Co. is preventing me from connecting to my Macs, again? I’m puzzled. 😛
#23 Shin
“allows his customers to feel superior to the point that their whole lives seem to depend upon how apple is viewed by anyone else”
That’s gotta be one of the best anti-Apple rants I ever read! I don’t give a crap about Apple either way, but I love to read these fights.
Just curious though Shin, I *think* I know how you feel about Jobs, but what about Woz? would Apple be better/worse today if Woz was still a factor?
Hahahaha..you may well have caught me here. I have actually paid little to no attention to mac computers in maybe 15 years or more..back to the time when you couldn’t open the case and add anything new to your machine..even video cards…so it’s quite possible..no…absolutely certain..that I am talking out my ass regarding them. (But..in my defense, that almost seems a prerequisite for posting here..^_^) That was about the time I got tired of the “we are the hip, new tech geeks because we have learned to work around the limitations imposed upon us by our God”…promoting their closed standard system over their open standard competition (all the while proclaiming that they were the liberators..it was a nice trick.). I am probably misled by the fact that they still seem unable to use a large segment (from what I read) of new software releases without months of tweaking..if ever. Not so bad now of course, since the decision to allow XP to be added, giving their customers the ability to use current programs to do their work…^_^. Nice of them…and after only a couple of decades too. I guess that open is better than closed now..what a turnaround..and the fans went crazy about that. (How dare they give us a choice of what to use…)
That list does looks suspiciously like mostly external I/O connections. Can you change cards internally yet? I mean…just in case something new comes along that may fit your needs.
And no…I don’t believe in the “evil Dr. Steve ” scenario either. He’s not dreaming up ways to screw anyone. He just doesn’t care about you as a customer once he has your money, anymore than any other CEO of a corporation. Period. He is a salesman-marketer. His job is to maximize profits. His only interest in you guys is if the publicity begins to get too bad and could affect sales. But somehow, he seems to have convinced (not really that hard a job for a con..I mean sales man)you guys that’s he’s a man of the people..with your interests at heart. He’s not, and he isn’t. He has your wallet at heart.
Not really, Shin. You’ve mistaken him for that guy that has to look the word “innovate” up in a dictionary, the one who has 40X as much money as Jobs, and still wants more, the gentleman who has spent his professional life copying, imitating, stealing, extorting other people’s ideas and passing them of as M$ creations. His name escapes me at the moment, but I’m sure you remember who I’m talking about. That’s the guy who DOES view his customers as contemptible sheep. And y’know, in millions of cases, he’s absolutely right.
Steve’s cravings are more about being a tech leader than the money. That other guy’ll take the pennies off the eyes of a dead man.
#28 I think Apple may have been more innovative in their tech as well as their marketing..but being at the edge is more risky, so I suspect their bottom line might not be as well liked by the wall street crowd. If Steve were ascendant…no, Woz still being there wouldn’t have made much difference…but I don’t think there is any way he would still be there. Not that he minds making money..but he would never have been able to keep his mouth shut at some of the hype (I want to say advertising claims..but they really don’t make many do they..going for more of the cutesy feel good type of ads)
#29 Ah..and just when I was going to shut up. Not debating Bill….but you know what? I still trying to find the cult of Bill. I’ve never met anyone who thinks he’s any more than a CEO of a software company, and I’d really love to hear the mac people stop whining about OS’s. They decided not to compete in the OS wars in the early PC days, They decided the way to go was a closed system,so they lost. The market made it’s decision. Get over it. If the mac OS was so much better why were they afraid to compete with it in the open market, on the same equipment that MS had to compete on, and why, over all this time, has the “innovative” mac been effectively out of the running in the business world (catching up now..but then again..they’ve opened their system to the devils product haven’t they?). I don’t know as I can criticize that idea..it’s worked for portable music devices..and whatever my feelings on it..they won the market with their closed up system. I think much of that is the apple glamor…and good design..no arguing that. They are looking at the mobile phone now..but I think that may be a harder slog now the fan boys have been saturated. I think the quick price cuts are showing that. I think they judged what the market will bear for their fans perfectly….buy may well have overestimated how much any one else will care, especially when copycat designs, now that they know a market is there, come it at a much lower outlay for the average consumer.
In general, I have to go with Pedro. If I were looking for a man who has spent his professional life copying, imitating, stealing, extorting other people’s ideas and passing them of as his companies creations there are 2 who come to mind…one you have alluded to. Guess who I think the other is..^_^. (and guess which one is a socially well adjusted, reasonably good looking salesman since his school days, and which is/was a socially maladjusted geeky looking computer nerd. I wonder why A has a better “image”) Oh, and guess how many inches behind them I think every other CEO in the world is. It’s virtually written into their objectives.
As you point out, Shin – the nerd, the one with (this is for pedro) not 50% more money, not twice as much, not five times as much, but forty times as much money. You might not’ve noticed, but it’s the socially inept, maladjusted people of the world who have so little of a clue as to what life’s about that they keep on amassing money, long, long past the point where it has become merely a counting game. Steve is going to look to increasing his net worth, and no one with that much money is going to do otherwise. But not being a nerd, that isn’t his life’s empty “purpose” – he actually spends some of his, to enjoy life – which (a) is what the money is for and BG doesn’t get;, and (b) is something BG has actually had to get people to try to teach him, and it still hasn’t taken. Buys a Ferrari – not because he wants one, but because, as a rich guy, he’s supposed to. To show how much he cares about and understands advanced technology, he drives it without oil, blithely destroying a handbuilt work of art. Something a clueless moneygrubber would do… He doesn’t hang out with tech visionaries, he prefers to hobnob with money men.
Steve has a mere sliver of what BG has, and yet enjoys life far more. BG, who got rich off of Steve’s ideas, is stuck in ‘mo money, mo money’ mode, because that’s all he’s good at. As a human being, he’s pretty much a cypher.
There ain’t much in common between those two. Steve ain’t no saint – but love ‘im or hate ‘im, at least he has a detectable human personality. BG is candidate #1 for the world’s first heart implant… 😛
…the only three men alive who can count me as a fan are Professors Hawking, Dawkins and Wilson. Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut and Vincent Price are dead.
Sorry I can’t share in your obsessive pathological envy and hatred of Jobs, pedro-me-lad…