Improving Apple retail experience (at non-Apple stores)
Today I went to Fry's Electronics. This is one of my favorite electronics stores, and historically has done a good job of promoting Apple products. A few months ago this store moved all of the Apple computers to a special double-wide aisle with all of the Apple oriented peripherals; I'm assuming this was meant to enhance Apple sales by putting all the related items together. As a result though, the Apple products are now separate from the PC's, most of the sales reps hang around in the larger PC area, and the Apple area is poorly maintained. Currently the only PowerBook on display is one of the previous generation 667's (discontinued 6 months ago) with a dead battery and no AC adapter. iBooks and iMacs are working but also outdated models, and overall there is much less traffic in the Apple area than previously.
So my question is: It seems like Apple has a virtual army of Apple fans visiting/surveying every electronics store on a regular basis. I remember reading in the past that Apple was making active efforts to get CompUSA to improve their presentation of Apple products (all the store-within-a-store business). So would it benefit Apple to have a special hotline/email where we could report on specific stores where Apple products were being poorly represented? And could Apple then exert any influence to try to smooth things out? It seems obvious that the individual store managers in these problem stores don't care, otherwise the problem wouldn't exist, so talking to them isn't useful.
Any other ideas or suggestions? I hate to see Apple's market share dwindling, then go to a store where Apple has convinced the upper management to sell Apple products but the execution is so poor that no one can reasonably be expected to buy them.
So my question is: It seems like Apple has a virtual army of Apple fans visiting/surveying every electronics store on a regular basis. I remember reading in the past that Apple was making active efforts to get CompUSA to improve their presentation of Apple products (all the store-within-a-store business). So would it benefit Apple to have a special hotline/email where we could report on specific stores where Apple products were being poorly represented? And could Apple then exert any influence to try to smooth things out? It seems obvious that the individual store managers in these problem stores don't care, otherwise the problem wouldn't exist, so talking to them isn't useful.
Any other ideas or suggestions? I hate to see Apple's market share dwindling, then go to a store where Apple has convinced the upper management to sell Apple products but the execution is so poor that no one can reasonably be expected to buy them.
Comments
You should visit the Fry's in Austin. Best Apple buying experience in Texas, short of Houston and Plano's Apple stores.
Especially if you happen to come when I'm working.
[/shameless, selfish plug]
- Johnny Dangerously