Apple Store

The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple. The stores sell, service and repair various Apple products, including Mac desktop and MacBook laptop personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital media players, software, and both Apple-branded and selected third-party accessories. The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship with consumers and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997 and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage over the years, with 540 stores across 27 countries and regions worldwide. Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011.…

The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple. The stores sell, service and repair various Apple products, including Mac desktop and MacBook laptop personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital media players, software, and both Apple-branded and selected third-party accessories. The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship with consumers and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997 and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage over the years, with 540 stores across 27 countries and regions worldwide. Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011. Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. It has been granted design patents and received architectural awards for its stores' designs and construction, specifically for its use of glass staircases and cubes. The success of Apple Stores has had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, who have lost traffic, control and profits due to perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores. Apple's notable brand loyalty among consumers causes long lines of hundreds of people at new Apple Store openings or product releases. Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives many job applications, many of which come from young workers. Apple Store employees receive above-average pay, are offered money toward education and health care, and receive product discounts. A May 2016 report with an anonymous retail employee highlighted a hostile work environment with harassment from customers, intense internal criticism, and a lack of significant bonuses for securing major business contracts.

Work environment

Due to the popularity of the brand, applicants for jobs at Apple Stores are numerous, with many young workers applying. The pace of work is high due to the popularity of the iPhone and iPad. Employees typically work for only a few years as career prospects are limited with no path of advancement other than limited retail management slots. Apple Store employees make above-average pay for retail employees and are offered benefits including 401(k) plans, product discounts, and reduced price on stock. The retention rate for the technicians who staff the Genius Bar is more than 90%. in Vancouver, Canada A May 2016 Business Insider article featured a lengthy interview with an anonymous Apple Store retail worker in the United Kingdom, where the employee highlighted significant dissatisfaction and issues for retail workers, including harassment and death threats from customers, an intense internal criticism policy that feels "like a cult", a lack of any significant bonus if a worker manages to secure a business contract worth "hundreds of thousands", a lack of promotion opportunities, and are paid so little that many workers are unable to buy products themselves even with a "generous" discount on any Apple product or Apple stock. According to an April 2022 press release, over 70 percent¹ of the eligible employees at the Cumberland Mall Apple Store in Atlanta, Georgia, were interested in unionizing. The employees asked for a $28 per hour wage, better benefits, and profit-sharing. However, the Towson Town Center Apple Store in Towson, Maryland, became the first store to join a union in June 2022. In April 2026, Apple announced the Towson store would be closing in June. Apple blamed the closing on declining mall business conditions; the union voiced its suspicions of a disguised attempt to bust the union.

History

Third-party retail

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, returned to the company as interim CEO in 1997. According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs began a concerted campaign to help sales by improving the retail presentation of Macintosh computers. Even with new products launched under his watch, like the iMac and the PowerBook G3 and an online store, Apple still relied heavily on big-box computer and electronics stores for most of its sales. There, customers continued to deal with poorly trained and ill-maintained Mac sections that did not foster customer loyalty to Apple and did not help differentiate the Mac user experience from Windows. In fact, the retailer trend was towards selling their own generic in-house brand PCs which used even cheaper components than those by major PC makers, increasing retailer overall margins by keeping the manufacturing profits. This "provided a powerful profit motive to convert customers interested in buying a Mac into the owners of a new, cheaply assembled, house brand PC". Tim Cook, who joined Apple in 1998 as Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations, announced the company would "cut some channel partners that may not be providing the buying experience [Apple expects]. We're not happy with everybody." Jobs severed Apple's ties with every big box retailer, including Sears, Montgomery Ward, Best Buy, Circuit City, Computer City, and OfficeMax to focus its retail efforts with CompUSA—which reached an agreement to establish dedicated departments for Apple hardware, staffed by trained employees and representatives. Apple also worked with local user groups to promote launch events for new hardware and Mac OS releases. Between 1997 and 2000, the number of Mac authorized resellers dropped from 20,000 to just 11,000. The majority of these were cuts made by Apple itself. Jobs proclaimed that Apple would be targeting Dell as a competitor, with Cook's mandate to match or exceed Dell's lean inventories and streamlined supply chain. Jobs made an open statement to Michael Dell, "with our new products and our new store and our new build-to-order, we're coming after you, buddy." While Dell had operated as direct mail order and online order company, having pulled out of retailers to realize greater profit margins and efficiency, Apple had direct orders with sales handled by its channel partners, other mail order resellers, independent dealerships, and the new relationship with CompUSA. After a retail design concept by Marc Newson was abandoned, a revised concept for an Apple "store-within-a-store" was designed by ., a San Francisco-based firm who had developed Apple's presences at the MacWorld expo; they were designed as a self-contained showroom with more minimalistic design that emphasized the products themselves. After a trial at retail outlets in Japan, CompUSA began to adopt the new concept for its locations beginning in 1999. The "store within a store" approach still had shortcomings; acting as a mystery shopper, Macworld writer David Pogue observed that all but one of the locations he visited had employees who actively steered him towards Windows PCs and attacked Macs (such as claiming they did not have software available); the company's PR director Suzanne Shelton stated that finding "specialized" talent was difficult. Despite this, CompUSA sales of Macs had increased. Apple then added Best Buy as a second authorized reseller. Challenges still remained, as resellers' profit margins on selling Macs was only around 9%, and selling Macs was only worthwhile if ongoing service and support contracts were provided, of which retailer experiences were inconsistent.

Origins

, in 2001 Jobs believed the Apple retail program needed to fundamentally change the relationship to the customer, and provide more control over the presentation of Apple products and the brand. Jobs recognized the limitations of third-party retailing and began investigating options to change the model. In 1999, Jobs personally recruited Millard Drexler, former CEO of Gap Inc., to serve on Apple's board of directors. Apple then hired Allen Moyer, a former Walt Disney Imagineering executive, to lead real estate and construction for the retail program. In 2000, Apple hired Ron Johnson, vice president of merchandising at Target, to serve as Apple's senior vice president of retail operations. The retail and development teams, headed by Moyer, began constructing a series of mock-up Apple Stores inside a secured warehouse in Cupertino to test different layouts and design concepts. Jobs collaborated with Johnson, architect Art Gensler, and design firm Eight Inc. in developing the final store design. Gensler's firm was retained to design the first 100 Apple Store locations. On May 15, 2001, Jobs hosted a press event at the Tysons Corner Center store in Tysons, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., one of Apple's first two retail stores. Both the Tysons Corner and Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California stores opened at 10 a.m. local time on May 19, with the Tysons Corner location opening three hours earlier than Glendale because of the time difference between the East and West coasts. More than 7,700 people visited the two stores during their opening weekend, spending a combined .

Genius Bar

All Apple Stores feature a Genius Bar (besides Apple Park Visitor Center), where customers can receive technical advice or set up service and repair for their products. The Genius Bar provides hardware service on products that are not classified vintage or obsolete. However, in most cases the Geniuses will at least attempt to assist customers with older hardware. The Genius Bar at Apple Stores offers same-day service for both OLED/LCD screen and lithium-ion battery replacement. If the in-house technician needs to send the affected device to an Apple Repair Center, most repaired or replaced iPhones will be returned or ready for pickup in approximately 3 business days. In May 2017, Apple launched a new program called Today at Apple. Customers can come in and receive free training from a Creative in more than 60 different sessions. Topics include basic device knowledge, Apple's professional film, and music editing software, coding for kids, and tools for using Apple products in classroom-based learning. The largest Genius Bar in the world is located in Amsterdam.

Imitations

In July 2011, an American expatriate blogger who lives in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming reported on her discovery of what she called "the best ripoff store we had ever seen"—a fake Apple Store, complete with the glass exterior, wood display tables, winding staircase and large promotional posters found in legitimate Apple Stores, and with employees wearing lanyards and the same T-shirts as actual Apple Store employees. The Wall Street Journal reported that the store had "gotten widespread international attention for the remarkable lengths to which its proprietors seem to have gone to mimic the look and feel of a real Apple Store." The fake Apple Store was mentioned by US presidential contender Mitt Romney in the second 2012 election debate. Chinese law prohibits retailers from copying the look and feel of competitors' stores, but enforcement is lax. According to The Wall Street Journal, unauthorized Apple resellers are found throughout China; the blogger's original post noted that two such stores were located within walking distance of the first knockoff, one of them with a misspelled sign reading "Apple Stoer". An employee of the first knockoff confirmed that the store was not one of the 13 authorized Apple resellers in Kunming. In a follow-up report, Reuters indicated that local authorities in Kunming had closed two fake Apple Stores in that city due to lack of official business permits, but allowed three other such stores to stay open, including the one that had attracted international attention. The operators of that store had applied for a reseller license from Apple. At the time of the report, only four legitimate Apple Stores had opened in China, with two in Beijing and two in Shanghai. These imitation Apple Store locations should not be confused with Apple Premium Resellers, which are independent businesses authorized to sell Apple products, and which are expected by Apple to offer services comparable to the company's corporate stores and a similar store design aesthetic. Apple Premium Resellers typically operate in countries and suburban communities not served by Apple Stores.

See also

ComputerWare Google Store Microsoft Store Samsung Experience Store

References

External links

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378186874 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.