Zach Bass

Apple Stores Outshine Retailers

Concerning BlaBlah's comment. I have to differ with EXTREME disagreement. Apple is the de-facto standard in retailing excellence today. There isn't a single major retailer on the planet that is performing as well as Apple.

I read a report that Apple's revenue per square foot blows buy every other retailer at around $5400 per square foot. The next closet in the US is Tiffany's at around $2000 per square foot, followed by Best Buy at around $800 per square foot.

The report said that the average Apple store bring in more revenue than the average Best Buy store, even though Apple stores have only 1/5 the total square footage.

The interesting thing is that Apple has shown great success with store-in-the-store efforts as well, ironically with Best buy. They currently have the in-store Apple stores in 400 Best Buys, and expect to have them in 600 buy the end of 2008. Also, isn't Apple in negotiations with an Indian retailer to build 60 stores there?

In addition, Apple is going to open another 45 stores this year, of which many will be overseas. This overseas presence will grow no doubt, and I see it as an extremely important point in Apple's growth strategy.

-zach bass
www.zachbass.com

Apple Stores Outshine Retailers

I spoke with my wife this morning, she's in Florida with my two teenage daughters vacationing on spring break. They found a mall in the Miami area and decided to go in, as girls are prone to do. She said the mall was nice, but she could not help noticing the buzz at the Apple store.

She said most other stores had average traffic, but the Apple store was frantic! She thought there was some sort of special event going on, so having their interests piqued, and also with my entire family being Mac users, they decided to see what was going on.

Well, to their surprise, there was no special event going on, just tons of people in the store, crowding around every display, sometimes 2 or 3 deep, waiting their turn to check out the product line up.

-zach bass
www.zachbass.com