Sales numbers/strategies?
Hello all,
Since my favorite hobby involves hanging out at CompUSA and watching the sales reps embarass themselves, it suddenly occured to me how amazing it is that macs sell to anyone except die-hard users.
Case in point (and it is unfair to implicate CompUSA in this): Fry's. When buying an iBook several years ago, various sales reps on repeated visits actually tried to _dissuade_ me from making a purchase! (Saying things like, "you don't want one of those, nobody uses them/nothing runs on them," etc). That said, Macs have are in the unfortunate position of, in many retail establishments, having to "sell _themselves_" (cue Jaguar's whizbang animations). Which gets me to the point of this post:
How does Apple market some of the "finer" points of Mac ownership. Specifically, I'm thinking of things like the "usable life" of the machine (I still use a Mac SE for e-mail, and am running X.2.3 on a iMac 400- and loving it). This is something I've never heard brought up in my many eavesdroppings of sales pushes, yet its one of the features that may prove the deciding factor for a potential Apple customer.
ALL of which begs the question: Just how many Macs do stores like CompUSA and Fry's actually _sell_?? Have the numbers been going UP, or DOWN? And, what sort of year, sales wise, do you think Apple will have in 2003. How did 2002 fare, counting the lousy economy, etc.? What sort of effect do you think the iPod and iBook have had on Apple's bottom line, and how has iPod influenced Mac perception?
I ask this, becuase, everywhere I went this Christmas season, I saw sold-out shelves where iPods once resided, moms, dads, and girlfriends buying iPods-- there was no getting away from it!!
This is my first post!!!!!!
Nate.
Since my favorite hobby involves hanging out at CompUSA and watching the sales reps embarass themselves, it suddenly occured to me how amazing it is that macs sell to anyone except die-hard users.
Case in point (and it is unfair to implicate CompUSA in this): Fry's. When buying an iBook several years ago, various sales reps on repeated visits actually tried to _dissuade_ me from making a purchase! (Saying things like, "you don't want one of those, nobody uses them/nothing runs on them," etc). That said, Macs have are in the unfortunate position of, in many retail establishments, having to "sell _themselves_" (cue Jaguar's whizbang animations). Which gets me to the point of this post:
How does Apple market some of the "finer" points of Mac ownership. Specifically, I'm thinking of things like the "usable life" of the machine (I still use a Mac SE for e-mail, and am running X.2.3 on a iMac 400- and loving it). This is something I've never heard brought up in my many eavesdroppings of sales pushes, yet its one of the features that may prove the deciding factor for a potential Apple customer.
ALL of which begs the question: Just how many Macs do stores like CompUSA and Fry's actually _sell_?? Have the numbers been going UP, or DOWN? And, what sort of year, sales wise, do you think Apple will have in 2003. How did 2002 fare, counting the lousy economy, etc.? What sort of effect do you think the iPod and iBook have had on Apple's bottom line, and how has iPod influenced Mac perception?
I ask this, becuase, everywhere I went this Christmas season, I saw sold-out shelves where iPods once resided, moms, dads, and girlfriends buying iPods-- there was no getting away from it!!
This is my first post!!!!!!
Nate.