On Apple Stores
Some recent news on MacCentral has readers debating on the relative merits of Apple's own retail stores and its support -- some would say waning support -- of independent dealerships. It's got me thinking.
First of all, the background: By the end of this year Apple will have somewhere in the vicinity of 80 retail stores open around the country. Most of them are in malls -- many of them upscale malls -- located near large population centers or rich suburban areas that Apple has deemed demographically appropriate for its efforts.
Independent dealers feel threatened by this, because they see Apple favoring its own retail stores when it comes to promotions, early seeding of in-demand stock and other benefits that give Apple an upper hand in selling to end users. I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.
I have an excellent local Mac dealership I'm very fond of. MAC/PC Sales and Service is about a twenty minute ride from my house and they really bleed Apple colors -- you can't miss it when you go by their shop in East Falmouth, because they've got Apple logos everywhere and iPod posters in the windows and the whole nine yards. Left to my own devices, I'd buy stuff there all the time. They also offer top-notch service and friendly support.
Alas, they're the exception, not the rule. Many, many independent dealerships -- not just for Macs but PCs as well -- are owned and operated by surly malcontents that would just as soon sneer at you as help you. And they're often only too anxious to push obsolete stock on you to get it (and you) out the door as offer you the right product for what you need. Their shops are often shabby, with little thought given to presentation or to the customer's experience. Often it's because the people running these stores have absolutely no retail marketing experience or training. Often it's because they just don't care.
Apple stepped into the retail channel exactly because of this sort of experience. They've got the money and the brainpower to get into high-visibility locations with a retail experience that is miles apart from the geek-cave experience of the average indie shop. And while they may not always bat 1.000 when it comes to giving people the right advice or being able to answer the question, you have to admit that it's a much less daunting task for a new Mac user or a new computer user to walk in to an Apple Store and see stuff work than it is for that same person to walk into the average independent PC vendor store and do the same.
Having said all that, I don't necessarily want to see Apple drive out independent resellers all together. They serve an important role, reaching out to potential Mac buyers with a retail presence that wouldn't be profitable for Apple to manage on its own. And sometimes -- though increasingly rarely, it seems -- they can work together with the customer to develop a custom solution that Apple probably couldn't do on its own. When Apple Stores first opened, that was the idea -- Apple said it would pass off customers looking for custom solutions or those that needed extensive hand-holding to local retailers. It doesn't seem to have quite worked out that way.
I suspect that it's only a matter of time before Apple closes ranks and stops supporting independent Mac resellers all together, except in extreme cases of geography where it just doesn't make sense for Apple to compete. Maybe my local guy will be lucky and Apple won't try to run him out of town. I can't really see that Cape Cod is that big a market for Apple to compete in, though I suspect getting a prime spot at Providence Place Mall down in Providence, RI *must* be on the agenda at some point.
Comments
Well said. Shopping for Apple stuff on CompUSA is a frustrating experience around here. However, the staff of the Apple store in Plano / Dallas was totally clueless when I first visited the store, a month or so after the opening.
Surprisingly enough, I find above-average customer service at OfficeMax. BestBuy is not bad either, but they usually don't have enough representatives to attend to all inquiring customers in busy hours.
I used to buy Apple hardware from an independent retailer which sells all kinds of systems directly to businesses. That was top-notch service. Unfoftunatelly, the owner decided to stop selling hardware as the margin is a mere 3% - he was invoicing over $3 Mi a year to get $90k for himself. As each setup goes for about $1,000, you can do the math...
Posted by: fccovett | March 2, 2004 05:07 PM
I have been seeing this trend in Apple for a while now, they have been moving into areas that have been traditionally 3rd party and pissing off the people that once filled those gaps.
For instance, Apple has been moving into lots of different types of software that has been traditionally 3rd party; iMovie, Final Cut Pro, iTunes, and so forth. This has resulted in the 3rd party mp3 player market for Mac just going completely dead, and Adobe dropping products (I dont care how much you think After Effects sucked, how many people reading this thought at one point Adobe dropping a single product for Mac would be a sign of the apocalypse?).
Who wants to start developing new software for Mac when there is the constant fear Apple will just release a free Apple branded version of the product and drive your Mac efforts under?
Same goes with retail. Why would Best Buy ever want to start selling Macs again if they know Apple is just going to move a store in next door? With that said of course, the Apple stores were needed, there were too few Mac retailers as it was, most of which were hidden off in tiny strip malls or whatnot, hardly any in high visibility areas. With major retailers never really carrying Mac products for any period of time (except Comp USA), it may have been needed. But what I think Apple really needs to do is get their damn Powerbooks placed right next to the PC laptops at Best Buy.
There is also the price point, getting a decent Mac is just so fucking expensive, and when most users are going to go "Can it play Counter-Strike" or "Will it run all my old and busted accounting program" there is little incentive to make the move when they know it will cost them more for both the machine and replacement software. I know Apple can't compete with Dell pricing, but they can sure as hell get some decent machines out there under $1k (and I am not talking emacs).
Posted by: James | March 2, 2004 11:20 PM
I wouldn't worry about the third party software thing. Microsoft has been buying and bundling third party software with its products forever. MS-DOS 6 included disk repair, disk defragging, anti-virus, and disk compression software, and the software developers didn't die off. (Well, MS did get sued over the disk compression software, when Stac Electronics found some of their code in the MS product..)
Posted by: Alphax | March 3, 2004 02:24 PM
there is a difference between shipping basic software to keep your computer running with an OS and trying to brand every possible piece of software that runs on your OS as your own.
Just look, Audion has not bee updated since mid 2002 (and thats like iTune's only OSX competition).
And how many movie editing packages are still being supported outside of iMovie and FCP? Avid Express also hasn't been updated for Mac since 2002, and Adobe already pulled out.
With GarageBand and SoundTrack, will we lose ProTools? Windows now days has a better selection of sound apps than MacOS, Apple is seriously risking any chance of ever becoming king of sound again.
Mac users tend to be different than PC users, they are uber fanboys, and if Apple releases a product, they will NEVER buy the competing flavor. Even if there is a 3rd party tool thats 100x better than Apple's, they are going to get hurt hardcore because the Apple name, which in turn will hurt Apple because no one will want to continue to develop on MacOS if they are just going to get nudged out when they create a new market, I know I wouldn't.
Posted by: james | March 7, 2004 07:30 PM
After Effects sucks? Says who?
Posted by: Jean-Luc Dinsdale | March 8, 2004 01:46 PM