“Steve Jobs wanted customers to understand the Apple store ‘with one sweep of the eye,’ as if gods standing on Mount Olympus,” Jonny Bunning reports for The Guardian. “Indeed, the outlets seem to speak for themselves. Bright, uncluttered, and clad in glass, they couldn’t contrast more sharply with the big-box labyrinths they were designed to replace.”
“Neither could their profit margins. Since launching in 2001, the instantly recognizable stores have raked in more money – in total and per square foot – than any other retailer on the planet, transforming Apple into the world’s richest company in the process,” Bunning reports. “Yet the very transparency of the Apple store conceals how those profits are made.”
“The Apple store was explicitly designed as a brand embassy rather than a dedicated source of technical knowledge. As Ron Johnson, the former Target executive who came up with the concept, told the Harvard Business Review, ‘People come to the Apple store for the experience – and they’re willing to pay a premium for that … Apple is in the relationship business as much as the computer business,'” Bunning reports. “It might be expected that Apple store employees are, as their name implies, tech gurus with incredible intellects. But their true role has always been to use emotional guile to sell products. The Genius Training Student Workbook is the vaguely comical title of the manual from which Apple store employees learn their art. Prospective geniuses are taught to use empathetic communication to control customer experience and defuse tension, aiming to make them happy and relax their purse strings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wait, Apple’s stores are designed, ultimately, to move product and the very people who staff them are trained to facilitate that objective?
Shocker.
SEE ALSO:
Apple Retail Stores are saving many shopping malls from death – August 4, 2017
Apple by far the No. 1 retailer in sales per square foot, nearly double those of Tiffany & Co. – July 27, 2017
How the Apple Retail Store took over the world – July 22, 2015
Overall sales at shopping malls with an Apple Store are 10% higher – March 11, 2015
Apple Stores dominate retail with double the sales per sq. ft. of nearest rival, Tiffany & Co. – November 13, 2012
Why authorities waive rents and taxes to land Apple Retail Stores – May 20, 2012
Apple Retail Stores challenge department anchor stores – June 10, 2011
Lovely hit piece by The Guardian. Utter crap. Biased to the hilt.
I would argue that the stores are designed to impress potential customers with the best solutions to the new & much needed ‘information society’ we have evolved into.
That is as opposed to the “other” stores about the same time that sold Zunes. Yeah, some younger people may not even know what a Zune was.
Currently the Apple “relationship” with upper level pros is sadly lacking.
Wait for 2019…..
This subject has been beaten to death 10 times over in the past few years or more.
And Apple approximately a year ago acknowledged and responded.
The Super Extreme Pro stuff you are refereeing to is promised for 2019..
For the not so super Extreme pro ( yet quite pro enough for 90% ) they already have introduced quite a few powerful selections in their lineup In the last one year.
Hope springs eternal …