“Apple’s retail stores are not consumer destinations for all of the company’s products, a new study suggests,” Don Reisinger reports for Fortune. “The vast majority of people who buy iPhones in the U.S.— nearly 80% — do so at carrier stores rather than the company’s own retail outlets. In fact, just 11% of iPhones bought in the U.S. are purchased on Apple.com or at an Apple Store, according to new data from researcher Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP).”
“However, buying behavior is dramatically different for Apple’s other products,” Reisinger reports. “Nearly four in ten Macs purchased in the U.S. are bought at the Apple Store. According to CIRP, 30% of Macs are purchased at a Best Buy store. On the iPad side, Apple stores account for 20% of the company’s tablet sales. Surprisingly, Best Buy is the top retail destination for iPad sales, accounting for 25% of purchases.”
“Still, Apple is able to steal some of its iPhone and iPad customers away each year during the period around a product launch,” Reisinger reports. “Other retailers have constrained supply during an iPhone or iPad product launch, according to CIRP, leading customers to Apple stores, where they might have better luck at getting a new device.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s literally still shocking to us – as we remember the dark days well – to see the number of Mac boxes going out of Best Buy stores today.
One would expect that the more complicated – Steve Jobs would likely say “more capable” – the machine, the more buyers would rather buy from the source as they’d generally expect Apple retail staff to be better prepared to answer their questions than a reseller.
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