“At this week’s Macworld Expo, Apple rolled out its first Intel Macintoshes and a few new software packages while bragging about the great success of the iPod device along with iTunes,” John C. Dvorak writes for MarketWatch. “Amongst the successes is the somewhat overlooked locomotive that pulls the Apple train: the Apple Store.
“Apple has proven, hopefully once and for all, that the branded retail specialty store is the key to success in high margin design-oriented high technology sales. It works with cars; it works with clothes; it works with shoes. Why not computers? And unlike generalized computer stores such as CompUSA the vendor can control their own sales pitch,” Dvorak writes. “I have personally been baffled by two things over the 30-year era of desktop computing. The first is why every brand name computer-maker never realized that they needed their own storefronts. The second was why Apple took so long to do theirs. Now look at them.”
“According to Steve Jobs in his keynote at MacWorld Expo, the company’s 135 retail stores just had their first $1 billion quarter with 26 million people visiting during the past three months,” Dvorak writes. “At this point it is becoming obvious that the other players in the computer game (Toshiba, Dell, HP, Lenovo and others) will have to consider this model in the years ahead. They’d better.”
Full article here.
Only Apple has Mac OS X. All of the others rely on Microsoft Windows which makes it pretty tough to differentiate your product from your competitors. Toshiba, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others basically all offer the same hardware stuck with the same old mediocre user experience. All they really have to differentiate themselves from each other is price. Apple’s retail strategy works because Apple and their products are unique and innovative, not just another Windows box assembler (or WMA-based MP3 player maker) like all the rest.
Funny flashback quote: David Goldstein, president of the Channel Marketing Corp., on Apple’s retail store launch, July 16, 2001, “It’s completely flawed. They’ll shut it down and write off the huge losses in two years.” (Source: Taipei Times)
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