Filed under: Retail
NY Times compares Apple and Sony retail experiences
Remember when Apple's "retail experiment" was viewed as a risky, borderline-nutty strategy? Recall how Gateway and other technology companies were running away from their mall outposts while Apple was rolling out its first stores back in 2001? Randall Stross at the New York Times remembers [registration required], and he says that "[o]f the many predictions in the world of technology that have turned out to be spectacularly wrong, a prominent place should be made for what the pundits said in 2001 when Apple opened its first retail store in Tysons Corner, Va." Apple has succeeded tremendously in retail, partly due to a strategy of supporting a positive customer experience (Genius Bar!) and partly due to an unexpectedly popular product (the iPod).Stross quotes Apple's quarterly report on retail numbers -- over 180 stores, sales of $855 million -- and compares the Apple retail mojo to the Sony Style stores' relatively low impact. He also notes the impending return of Dell to the retail channel; not through Dell-branded stores, but through Wal-Mart... there's a really positive retail association for you. As long as Apple continues to make an emotional connection with buyers at the point of sale, it'll be hard to beat the Apple Stores.
via Philip Elmer-Dewitt at Apple 2.0
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason said 12:28PM on 5-29-2007
A friend of mine went in to buy his first new Mac in long time (a Mac Pro) and found it couldn't be configured like it is online - meaning, he couldn't upgrade the hard drive, graphics card, RAM or any stock options, only add to them. He needed the machine that weekend to do work and didn't want to dump more money into his old, failing PC. The employees, when asked why the parts couldn't be upgraded like online said, "sorry, it's corporate." So, he's stuck with the default graphics card (that can't adapt to S-Video for his monitor - a common complaint amongst video people) and an extra 500 gig hard drive on top of the stock 250 gig (instead of just one 500 gig, which would have been fine and saved a lot of money).
Needless to say, not a good experience when hearing all the great "most configurable Mac" things and trying to stay within a budget on time constraints. Much less, switching over to their product. No help or give at all.
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Rico Suave said 12:12PM on 5-28-2007
wow, i've been going to the Tyson's Corner Apple store for Six years never knowing that it was the very first one!! I remember watching the iMacs change in form over time and wanting the the G4 i think it was.
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XiozTzu said 12:16PM on 5-28-2007
So what other major brand gives you instant configurablity on the spot? Unless you are building a machine yourself or going to a local PC builder you have to go with a default set of hardware. The real problem is your buddy wanted a PC on a moments notice; with those constraints you get what you can, not what you want. I don't see how this was a bad experience? It was just bad planning on your friend's part.
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Devin Lussier said 12:37PM on 5-28-2007
Jason, I think you'd be harder pressed to walk into Best Buy and get a completely configurable PC from any of the manufacturers they stock. With practically every computer manufacturer you have to order direct to get a custom setup, it's not just Apple. Toyota does this as well with their cars, you can only get options "packages" in certain areas of the country and you can't mix and match options a la carte, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them.
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JeffDM said 4:21PM on 5-28-2007
What part of the retail experience? The one SonyStyle store that I've been to is nicer than my local Apple store. My local Apple store is a long, narrow echo box hall with no acoustical treatment other than the drop ceiling, so it's as if you hear each foot fall, each shoe squeak and so on several times over. The SonyStyle store's arrangement seems to do a lot to break up and diffuse noise.
BTW: The Mac Pro can output S-Video using an adapter, but it takes out one DVI connector in doing so.
You would be better off spending the money at Best Buy to add another hard drive rather than just upgrading to a larger one. Upgrading from 250GB to 500GB with Apple costs $129, whereas a new 500GB drive is often about $150. The 750 drive from 250GB is $299, adding a second drive from another source is $250, so instead of a 500GB improvement with an upgrade replacement, you get 750GB improvement in adding a second drive.
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G said 4:59PM on 5-28-2007
When I saw this headline, I immediately thought this would be an article about their retail web sites. Sony has got to be the largest company with the worst web coding I have ever encountered. It's slow, buggy, often incomplete, and very unfriendly. No other worldwide corporation comes close. I guess it's impressive how bad they manage to be. Hooray, Sony web team.
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bugga said 6:00PM on 5-28-2007
Just adding a registration-free link to the NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/business/yourmoney/27digi.html?ex=1337918400&en=9ec3351af133bd47&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
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starwxrwx said 10:26PM on 5-28-2007
I believe Sony stores will always fail for two key reasons:
1) Unlike Apple products, you can often buy Sony products on sale or for a discount elsewhere. Hence by going to the Sony store you KNOW you will be paying top dollar. At an Apple store, you know you will be paying the same price as anywhere else.
2) Sony has a HUGE catalog of products and no store will ever be able to stock even a fraction of them. By contrast, Apple's limited range means that if you want a certain iPod or Macbook you know they will have one in store (and one on display to play with).
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Brady J. Frey said 10:36PM on 5-28-2007
Walking into the high traffic location Sony Style store here in San Francisco, and the Apple store is a night and day experience. I walk into Sony Style, everything's neatly boxed, no real guidance, no one really to talk too (2 sales reps usually annoyed or smug about questions, and the occassional demo rep before you walk in from the top level). They have usually 2 or 3 security guards chit chatting and looking dead at you. I walk in there, not one person talks to me unless I ask, and it's a mix of thousand dollar flat screens or Blu Ray/PSP videos in one rack (including a small bargain bin).
Sony's stores plop their products on display, and figure they'd sell themselves. They care nothing for the customer service experience - or if they do, they're not listening.
I second their website, it's a disaster to shop through. I've specifically not purchased items because of that mess.
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Jason said 12:51PM on 5-29-2007
@JeffDM - Actually, you can't with the default nVidia card. We bought the adapter, then looked it up in the discussions when it didn't work. They don't advertise this. You have to upgrade to the ATI card (which is 400 dollars on its own).
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3533073�
@others - The Mac Pro is advertised as the most configurable Mac ever and Apple is reported to have high customer service. When someone is paying 3k for a machine AND switching to your product "on a moments notice," you would think someone would help out a little. I mean, this thing comes with a "standard" 10% restocking fee, so even if it didn't work out for some reason, that's 300 dollars to "rent" a machine. I guess I just expected a little more from Apple, otherwise I would put them on par other retailers.
Besides, this is not something that sets them back a lot - what's the difference between Apple swapping out RAM or hard drives at their main facility and doing the same thing at the storefront? Swap out a drive or RAM a couple times, then send the stuff back to the factory in a bulk shipment. Wouldn't the extra cost be worth it to have satisfied customers instead of ones with a tainted first impression of Apple? Isn't the Apple Store an extension of the online store? Isn't that a little misleading if you can configure a machine online then say, "I don't want to wait for shipping, I'm sure glad Apple has a store down the street I can go to and get this?" Perhaps a little clarity for the average consumer would be nice.
As for the customer service experience, the guy who "helped" us barely knew what he was talking about. He also went to check on something for us then didn't come back for a long, long time. When we asked him about a feature in iMovie, he played around with it on the computer a little and scratched his head. I've had similar experiences with "geniuses" when getting my MBP repaired or looked at, though some of them are smug and barely do anything to actually "fix" problems, too. Not saying there aren't good people there, but it's not any different from a regular store in my experience. Just better designed.
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Jason said 12:53PM on 5-29-2007
Link above doesn't work. Search for "s-video" in the Mac Pro discussions on Apple.com. Lots of posts.
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jonah Bliss said 12:21AM on 5-30-2007
Technically the one in Glendale opened the same day as the virginia one, and if you look at apple's webpages about the stores, the Glendale one is referred to with the number 1, while the virginia one isn't...
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Michael Rose said 12:24AM on 5-30-2007
Jonah, I'm shocked that you would question the factual accuracy of Mr. Stross of the NEW YORK FRICKIN' TIMES. Shame, sir!
:-)
(Most press reports do call the Tysons Corner store the first store, likely since it's on the East Coast and would have opened, chronologically, several hours before Glendale.)
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Andrew Hillman, Andrew Hillman, Andrew Hillman said 10:43AM on 6-02-2007
Apple nows how to do it!
Andrew Hillman
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Holly Wild said 1:41AM on 8-25-2007
Im just curious what is the best route today when wanting to buy a computer? Do you go to a reseller like Best Buy or Circuit City? Do you go straight to the manufacturers website? And then theres the liquidation houses like A-ZComputer Liquidators, Golden Surplus, Auctionbidmart.com, and Applied Quality Test, Inc.
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Holly Wild said 1:45AM on 8-25-2007
Here are the sites of those liquidators: http://www.spintradeexchange.com, http://www.goldensurplus.com, http://www.auctionbidmart.com, http://www.selltestequipment.com - check them out!
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