Very interesting article in Fortune about the hugely successful Apple Stores. As a consumer, I'm thrilled by Apple products, but as a retail professional, I'm impressed by the Apple Stores' concept, management and expansion !
One metrics which speaks for itself is the $/Sq Ft ratio : above $4000 for Apple, 4 times that of Best Buy which tops electronics retailers.
Back in 2001, retail consultant David Goldstein could boldy predict : "I give [Apple] two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake".
Well, Goldstein was not the first one to have history proves him 100% wrong - ask Michael Dell ! - but back then it could indeed have been a costly mistake should Apple have lacked the inspirational products it later launched. A retail network works if it gets thruput, and thruput boils down to attractive merchandising.
As I once said, should Apple cease to be the brilliantly innovative company it is today, then it's retail network shall indeed prove to be very costly, although the concept itself is very well thought.
Anyway, back in 2001 Steve Jobs had the vision that Apple's sales were inhibited by a sub-motivated and sub-efficient distribution, and therefore Apple had a great leverage in controlling this part and in providing consumers a better experience.
His vision was right ! But not only that, he also hired the best retail executives in the US : Mickey Drexler, who was running Gap, joined Apple's Board, and Ron Johnson, merchandising chief at Target, was chosen to run the Apple Stores.
Interesting enough, following Drexler's advice, they built a mock-up store near the Apple Campus in Cupertino where Steve Jobs & Ron Johnson spent quite a great deal of time (9 months) fine tuning the concept ! As usual, Steve Jobs was extremely demanding and perfectionist : it took them a year and a half to get the right steel finish they were looking for !
i'm happy you read the article i was talking about :)
Anyway just one trivia about Ron Johnson. When he was hired by Apple, he kept for almost one year a fake name.
This name was on his business card, and also used for reservation and hotel sign in.
Posted by: olivier | March 12, 2007 at 05:15 PM
Apple is so secretive !
Posted by: Michel de Guilhermier | March 12, 2007 at 09:03 PM
have you seen that the likes of ATT/Cingular and Verizon were launching these days a series of huge retail stores (with interactive screens and goodies to transform the experience of buying cellular services ) ?
Posted by: sebastien (NY) | March 13, 2007 at 06:15 PM