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Apple to expand, move 20 retail stores to accommodate growing crowds

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 · 1:22 pm · 27 Comments

“Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a keynote speech at the Goldman Sachs investor conference that Apple was going to close 20 of its retail stores, in order to move them and make them large enough to serve the ongoing influx of Apple customers,” Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch. “Some of Apple’s stores aren’t big enough, Cook said, noting that its retail outlets now see 10 million people per week across its 400-plus locations.”

“On last quarter’s earnings call, Apple announced that it did $6.4 billion in retail store sales, up from $6.12 billion in the last holiday quarter,” Perez reports. “Today, Cook continued to be incredibly bullish on retail, noting that the average Apple store does $50 million in revenue. Last year, stores saw 370 million visitors, with 120 million in the past quarter.”

Perez reports, “Showing a bit of personality, Cook even equated the experience of entering an Apple store to ‘taking a Prozac.’”

Read more in the full article here.

Categories: News

Tags: aapl, Apple Retail Stores, Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, retail, Tim Cook

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Comment Feed

27 Comments

disposableidentity

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:41 pm · Reply

Doomed!
G Spank

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:42 pm · Reply

Why not just add locations??? Starbucks does and it works for them. An Apple store within 15 mintue drive for everyone!!
ppeterson

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:42 pm · Reply

I regularly visit two Apple retail stores where I live. I go there for two reasons – first to see a Genius, and second to buy something. Both are ALWAYS crowded. The No. 1 change I have noticed is people asking about iPhone features that don’t exist. Or why the iPad can’t accomplish tasks that require a computer. More and more of them are leaving the store empty handed – something I used to never see. In the past customers came to buy something. Now they come in, look around, ask questions and are often provided with wrong answers, and react negatively to how much the gadgets cost. While the blind faithful on this site will point to sales figures of the past months or years, no one seems to want to recognize the trend so clearly obvious in the way people behave inside an Apple retail store. Wall Street guys, who care ONLY about the future and NEVER about the past, must be watching. Otherwise, how to explain a historic collapse in the price of AAPL.
- NHL
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:51 pm · Reply
  
  ppeterson, you spend a lot of time Trolling here.
  X-box down and mommy isn’t getting it fixed for you?
  - ppeterson
    
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:04 pm · Reply
    
    It’s so easy for you kool aid drinkers to dismiss anyone who is not here to worship a once great company as a troll. I am not a troll. I simply miss the company that Apple once was. I want it to be great again. It won’t be under Tim Cook. It won’t be just because MDN keeps finding mindless commentary to extol the size of the company or speculation about some mythical new product. Sad but true. As soon as you face the reality of what has happened to Apple and its gadgets, you will either just fade away or get yourself mobilized to insist that somebody do something.
    - Elaina Hershfeld
      
      Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:15 pm · Reply
      
      No, dahling, you ARE a troll. Now flitter away.
    - KRONOS
      
      Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:58 pm · Reply
      
      Great comeback, dickhead.
    - rfrmac
      
      Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 5:23 pm · Reply
      
      Yes, and there has been sooo much innovation elsewhere.
      Wake up, if there is no future innovation coming out of Apple we all lose. Apple users as well as all of the copier companies all lose. Where is the innovation going to come from? Wall Street? Wake Up!
      
      PS Apple Stores seem to be selling just fine. Look at the figures. Most of us don’t have time to set and count.
- Arnold Ziffel
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:53 pm · Reply
  
  Yeah, right.
- schininis
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:00 pm · Reply
  
  You are making a classic mistake . . . taking something that you recognize to be true and projecting it onto the entire universe. Sorry . . . anecdotal information does not define a trend. AAPL will not go down just because of one thing you noticed . . . even if you are right, Apple is a worldwide company and what is happening in China or India could easily out weight some minor lost sales in the 2 stores you shop in.
- correctu
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:20 pm · Reply
  
  “I regularly visit two Apple retail stores where I live. I go there for two reasons – first to see a Genius, and second to buy something.”
  
  An Apple Genius isn’t supposed to be a replacement for a shrink.
  - correctu
    
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:22 pm · Reply
    
    (nor Ginkgo Biloba)
- kingmel
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:21 pm · Reply
  
  ppeterson is almost always negative with respect to Apple and he seldom has strong evidence for his assertions, but that doesn’t make him a troll in the true sense of the word. And some of his criticisms and Eeyore perspectives have merit.
  
  Similarly, not everyone who disagrees with ppeterson is a kool-aid drinking fanboy. People can disagree with you, ppeterson, and be correct in doing so. You are too quick to extrapolate to systemic problems from isolated events and soft evidence.
  - Tessellator
    
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 4:10 pm · Reply
    
    I don’t know Kingmel, while agree with your assertion that people need to be able decent and that Apple is far from perfect. However, Ppeterson does in fact fit the forum troll archetype in that he (nearly universally) 1 takes anecdotal special cases and observations and expands them to reality, and second he is almost universally anti apple products yet claims to love them, normally damming with fait praise however (why? one wonders)
    Both are classic troll and, as the saying goes; if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
    - kingmel
      
      Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 10:36 pm · Reply
      
      I will admit that ppeterson is a very difficult person. But the troll label is thrown around far too much on this forum, and I do not appreciate it when MDNers toss out that label against dissenters as a substitute for reasoned debate. In this particular case, ppeterson’s post was not all that unreasonable. While I am not nearly so negative as ppeterson, I tend to agree that the Apple Store customer experience has declined over the past couple of years. I suspect that much of that perception is due to Apple’s broadening customer base and busier stores.
      - kingmel
        
        Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 10:39 pm · Reply
        
        That said, I would like to clarify that I strongly disagree with most of what ppeterson says. I am not a ppeterson supporter. I just want people to feel free to express dissent with and criticism of Apple without being troll-bashed.
- KRONOS
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:55 pm · Reply
  
  pee pea-brain- you and your posts continue to be full of unsubstantiated shit. Give it up already and slink back to your Scamscum overlords.
jooon

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 1:52 pm · Reply

Generational differences. I’d equate walking into an Apple store to smoking a blunt.
Wow Tech

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:03 pm · Reply

ppeterson: “Now they come in, look around, ask questions and are often provided with wrong answers, and react negatively to how much the gadgets cost.”

NHL, he’s not trolling. I’ve been given the wrong information twice by store personnel. The second time I figured enough is enough and took the time to prove to two of them they were wrong.

As well as dispensing wrong information, the one and only official Apple store here is so crowded I’m now going to small Apple-only independent.
hannahjs

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:14 pm · Reply

Entering a Microsoft store is like taking an Ex-lax
kingmel

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:16 pm · Reply

The Apple Store in Baybrook Mall (Houston TX) is way too small and always crowded. It needs to be doubled in size, at the very least.

I just hope that Apple is smart enough to open up the new, bigger stores before closing the older stores. Overlap between the old and new stores would be much better than gaps in coverage. I also hope that Apple is smart enough to schedule a store-to-store handover in a low key time of the year (avoid the holidays, new product releases, etc.).
Agent Provocateur

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:27 pm · Reply

Please move Saddle Creek out of Germantown and into Memphis proper.

The Teabaggers in suburban East Jesus- land of the Mega Church- have put an ordinance that caused the closing time to move from 9PM to 8PM. No shit.
- BMWTwisty
  
  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 3:02 pm · Reply
  
  Well, there’s always San Francisco…
  - kaplanmike
    
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 3:14 pm · Reply
    
    Thank God. (Pun intended.)
  - Agent Provocateur
    
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 5:43 pm · Reply
    
    The Bay area would be nice, just not today.
    
    I have about had my fill of Teabagger Land.
Dialtone

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 2:52 pm · Reply

There should be plenty of room in this thread for spirited disagreement about all things Apple. But unlike other forums, the MDN community can and should pride itself in not resorting to name-calling. Be hard on the problem, not on the people.

For those too young to remember where the expression “drink the Kool Aid” came from, here’s a tutorial: http://boingboing.net/2008/11/19/jamestown-30-years-l.html
Swing Geezer

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 3:38 pm · Reply

The Apple Store in Calgary just moved to larger quarters. It is much nicer. Not quite the crush it used to be, but still always nicely full. I have, however, learned that the spotty faced children (I’m old) haven’t really much experience with anything other than twitter and facebook. I’ve learned to do my own research and I simply go there to buy or simply for the experience of being around so much APPL .

However, they are charming and eager and it’s always a pleasant experience. I’ve just learned not to rely on them for deep knowledge.