“Apple’s retail strategy for the Watch is a little different to other products,” Sam Byford, Amar Toor, and Tom Warren report for The Verge.
“You can check it out in Apple’s own stores, of course, but the company is experimenting with other partners as well — places that never would have sold Apple products before,” Byford, Toor, and Warren report. “And the first phase of this occurred today, with pop-up Watch shops opening in major department stores in three fashion-forward cities: Tokyo, Paris, and London.”
Byford, Toor, and Warren report, “We were at all three. Here’s what we saw.”
Read more, and see the photos, in the full article here.
First thought: “Perhaps the most striking part is that I couldn’t even use the Apple Watch Edition on my wrist. You have to use the demo units on the counter if you actually want to know how it all works, so it’s really a gamble if you buy one. If I visited any other store to purchase a $17,000 watch I would be be able to inspect its features fully, and it would have been a much more intimate and careful process.”
Ninety percent of what you think and feel about any thing is subjective. However I was stuck on this statement as a fact. It sounded as if he wanted to “pair” the watch to his iPhone, if he had one. It sounded like he wanted to setup Apple Pay. It sounded like he wanted an experience he wasn’t going to get, while cameras, are watching (first person to try on) and literally a line out the door ready to take his place. This guy wanted a $17,000 experience, without spending a single dime.
The second part of his statement, “inspect features fully.” What? In comparison to what? Please expand on this. What $17,000 watch is there that has features you could inspect fully, that is more than simply, what you see is what you get? Did he want to crack it open, and see the gears in motion? Did he want to lick it, to get a sense of golden finger prints?
My take, this simple review was already written, before he set foot in the the store.
Bloomberg should have looked at the Verge photos before writing there hit whore headline.
Hilariously bad…
The first guy: “I thought I saw a big line of people. When I got there, I found out that at least half of them were reporters and photographers, so I ended up in line behind only about 15 actual customers.” I guess that makes reporters and photographers unreal customers.
“I didn’t really know what to expect this morning when I biked over to Galeries Lafayette”
Yes we are aware that a lot of them don’t have a clue but to be fair he wrote something half decent and he did get to try the Edition virgin.
The third guy is really funny: “I joked about running away with the $17,000 42mm version, and the security guard simply smiled away and watched me head to the door. Good job I’m not a real thief otherwise I’d be in the back of a London taxi typing up my eBay auction right now.”
Guy doesn’t realize that he is a thief, that is if he gets paid for that drivel. He can’t be a very good thief if the watch and other “watches that cost more than my house”.
Just what sort of real estate can you get for $17,000 in London? A sewer hole? A cardboard box with a wall unit? A park bench but only at night?