Apple's Atlantic City store to close, displacing 52 workers
Apple has announced the impending closure of a store in Atlantic City, N.J. without plans to open a new one in the surrounding vicinity.
Apple confirmed the closure of the Pier location in a statement to AppleInsider. The company first launched the shop in 2006, taking advantage of The Pier's connection to the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel and Casino.
The company has filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraning Notifcation with the state, covering the 52 people impacted by the decision, Bloomberg noted. In another statement Apple blamed the situation on a "sharp decline in tourism and visitors to the area," saying it will shut down the store once its lease expires, without giving a specific date.
"We are offering all of the store's employees other jobs within Apple, and we look forward to serving our Greater Atlantic City customers through our other southern New Jersey, Delaware Valley, and Greater Philadelphia area stores," the company added.
As one of the world's biggest corporations with billions in profits every quarter, Apple has rarely felt a need to shutter outlets. In fact the closure of a Simi Valley store in Sept. 2017 was considered a rare event, especially since the company was on the verge of shipping the iPhone 8, iPhone X, Apple TV 4K, and Apple Watch Series 3.
Apple confirmed the closure of the Pier location in a statement to AppleInsider. The company first launched the shop in 2006, taking advantage of The Pier's connection to the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel and Casino.
The company has filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraning Notifcation with the state, covering the 52 people impacted by the decision, Bloomberg noted. In another statement Apple blamed the situation on a "sharp decline in tourism and visitors to the area," saying it will shut down the store once its lease expires, without giving a specific date.
"We are offering all of the store's employees other jobs within Apple, and we look forward to serving our Greater Atlantic City customers through our other southern New Jersey, Delaware Valley, and Greater Philadelphia area stores," the company added.
As one of the world's biggest corporations with billions in profits every quarter, Apple has rarely felt a need to shutter outlets. In fact the closure of a Simi Valley store in Sept. 2017 was considered a rare event, especially since the company was on the verge of shipping the iPhone 8, iPhone X, Apple TV 4K, and Apple Watch Series 3.
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The Troll Army
While there are the rent and staff costs, there is also the issue of stocking a store which services so few people. As we already know during a launch, Apple's devices are in short supply and stocking a store which has few visitors robs stock levels from those stores which customers are actually visiting.
facetious
You can can park at resorts for free but then it’s either a decent walk on the boardwalk or pay to ride the not pleasant boardwalk jitney. Even if you park at caesars it is still a decent walk through the casino to the pier location.
To me, this says nothing about Apple’s viability but moreso about a location turned bad on many fronts for many reasons and it makes sense to close up shop while honoring their lease and helping soon to be displaced employees as best they can.
I always opted to drive to the Marlton store where you can park right at the store and you’re surrounded by nice shops and eateries.
Due to exorbitantly high rents, sometimes in the range of up to $2000 per square foot, very few of the retailers on Madison Avenue above 59th street in Manhattan are profitable. But the stores stay because they promote high-end brands.
The fact is that Apple doesn't report individual store sales and we have no idea whether all their mall stores are profitable. I've been in malls where you could throw a bowling ball down the hallway and you wouldn't hit anyone and because of e-commerce and other factors, some analysts predicted in December of 2017 that 25% of U.S. malls will close over the next five years.
This is no surprise to me. As I've posted before, I live in a 205-unit apartment building and we receive 50 packages a day - almost every one of those something that was not purchased from a physical retailer and a high percentage from Amazon in spite of the fact that hundreds of retailers are walking distance away. Outside of the types of items that one has to feel, touch, try-on or be demonstrated, I see massive retail closures happening over the next ten years. When you have retailers who aren't profitable each year until Black Friday, the loss from e-commerce means that they're unprofitable period.
I think that over time, we'll see more underperforming Apple stores close as leases are up unless Apple is able to negotiate a lower-priced lease. Except for training or service, why does one need an Apple store anyway? If you know what you want, it's just as easy if not easier to order it online whether from Apple or another retailer and I would guess that most of what Apple sells are not impulse purchases (except maybe in the richest neighborhoods).
The workers can get other Apple jobs if they want and they were probably notified a long time ago that this is going to happen.
That's the rough side of Apple's retail success. You can't have a store that underperforms around forever.