“Bob Kupbens, the Vice President in charge of Apple’s growing online retail business, resigned from the company last week to take on a new position elsewhere, according to multiple sources,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
“Kupbens joined Apple in 2014,” Gurman reports, “and has been in charge of all online-based Apple retail initiatives, ranging from the recently redesigned online store, its integration into the main Apple website, the online iPhone upgrade program and newfound connectivity with Apple’s physical retail stores.”
“Kupbens joined Apple in the months prior to Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts’s start in 2014. Kupbens reported to Ahrendts,” Gurman reports. “Kupbens is the latest top executive to leave Apple’s retail division in recent years. He follows former Apple retail executives Bob Bridger and Jerry McDougal out of Cupertino.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people. — Steve Jobs
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s Angelea Ahrendts makes her mark on Apple Stores by going ‘ultraluxe’ – December 8, 2015
What the heck is Angela Ahrendts doing at Apple? – September 10, 2015
Apple’s Angela Ahrendts emerges as highest-paid U.S. woman with $83 million – May 5, 2015
When Angela Ahrendts met Tim Cook – March 26, 2015
Jony Ive and Angela Ahrendts working on Apple Retail Store redesign for Apple Watch – February 16, 2015
I liked the old Apple Store better than the current system. Yes it needed to be improved, but I think rolling it into the main site, made it a lot more difficult to find what want.
What I want.
I agree fo sho. FO SHO 👋👋🐿
Interesting trend in terms of departures of senior retail management. I hope that this does not reflect problems with Ahrendts’ leadership or a systemic problem in that division. One of Apple’s strengths has been the longevity of its senior personnel. They internalize the Apple culture and pass it on to their successors and subordinates. Too much churn has the potential of damaging the continuity of that corporate knowledge and environment.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. You have to consider that Apple (or Google, Tesla, Facebook, etc) are pretty demanding workplaces and people tend to burn out. Combine that with all of these people being very well compensated and able to put a lot in the bank, I think a lot of them just reach a point where they want/need to go sit on a beach for six months.
From what has been written, Angela Ahrendt’s improved the managerial style of the retail division from what it was before.
Ahrendt is an empty suit. flattery like calling retail associates “executives” may be fine for some, but eventually you have to look at the results. Retail doesn’t appear to have any better results than under Johnson.
What has Ahrendts done?
– confused customers by turning them away during screwed up product introductions or insisting they needed appointments
– attempted to make some Apple stores more ultra-luxury. shuttered classrooms in Apple stores rather than increase footprints to enable more buyers to shop and take classes
– opened more stores in China (obviously) while ignoring other underserved markets.
– in sharp contrast to the forced luxury retail store architectural makeovers, hired many undertrained sales associates and issued them cheap unprofessional T-shirts. Inadequate Geniuses in many shops is a glaring problem.
– attempted to push more buyers to the Apple online store
– uglified the online site so you can’t find anything under the pile of iOS accessories that dominate every page.
– personally pocketed tens of millions of dollars before even reporting for work — just about enough money to put a new Apple store into every unserved country.
Long story short, Retail is changing to become more superficial and less user-friendly than ever before. But online sales will naturally increase no matter how much she screws up, so her job is safe. She can keep having her homesy video chats with employees and laugh all the way to the bank. The usual fanboys here won’t criticize her.
Hopefully they’ll now return the site to have the store separate of the product pages — currently it’s very unintuitive to navigate.
I just looked at the site on my 6 Plus and it is the cleanest it has ever been. The products are presented as they should: they pictures, descriptions, purchase info, etc. The only item I see missing is an accessories catagory. Everything else looks great.
Indeed Apple has recently made some good improvements to the online site. But why are they using Flash !??!?!?
They are NOT using Flash.
I highly doubt that’s true.
Show us a link?
Mike, those are not Flash animations. They are annoying however. I hate web sites that automatically move stuff around without any real user control.
MDN, for example.