Arguments for the Apple Store and other interesting insider tidbits...

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Today I had a conversation with a friend of mine looking to buy a laptop (powerbook).



She hasn't used a mac before; read about powerbooks on Apple's web site, liked the features, and went looking around Toronto area retail for a vendor. Couldn't find one because she was looking at places like Office Place, and Futile Shop. This brought up some serious warantee/support questions for her. And pushed her into the general vicinity of IBM ThinkPads. She hasn't bought anything yet. I can tell she really wants that powerbook, but she is very worried that she will not be able to find adequate support for it.



If only there were a store! I explained that Apple's service policy would allow her tyo ship the book in for repairs and gave her the name of two Apple vendors in T.O. -- EduConnect and CPUsed/PCUsed. But she wasn't thrilled. She doesn't want to buy it online, she wants to go into a store and play with one, and more importantly know that she can return it to that location for hands on service and general help. I explained that any of the big retail outlets were unlikely to give that kind of support for the systems they sell either, so she shouldn't single out Apple. Still the ABSENCE of an Apple Store is making this a much harder sell than it needs to be. Apple needs to expand Apple Stores into all of N.America and major European cities. They don't need to have a glut of closely packed stores. But one store in each major international metropolitan area would be great. For Canada: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Edmonton. And Ottawa too: lots of gov't money to be had there. In Europe and the UK: London, Paris, Milan, Rome, A few stores in Germany, Austria, and Belgium. Maybe 75 Stores world wide, with about 40 of them in the US.



On to the insider info. Don't crucify me, but I suggested a Dell as one of the PC alternatives (only because she has a PC already, and I thought it might be worth it for her to look into their warantee practice if only for a point of reference). Her immediate answer was NO WAY!



She handles warantee claims for a major credit card company (oversees them at the management level). Wanna guess who has the most problems with customers trying to adjust billing/rescind or block charges/invoke certain consumer protection privledges? DELL. Just something to note when these and other forums produce the inevitable complaint threads. PC laptops do in fact have their share (and more) of quality control issues, they just don't typically have fan sites where people can gripe about them!



It's interesting that her first reaction was no way am I buying a dell. A reaction based solely on the sheer volume of warrantee claims/complaints against them. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> This from someone who is only peripherally interested in computers and has NEVER used a mac.



I asked her if Apple registers a similar volume of complaints. She said no. Only DELL really stood out in that respect. Both companies do much of their business as direct order and so they must have a comparable numbers of credit card purchases. One has a lot of complaints and the other doesn't. Very interesting, indeed. I just thought that you'd like to know for the next time quality control generalizations pop-up in these forums.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]I asked her if Apple registers a similar volume of complaints. She said no. Only DELL really stood out in that respect. Both companies do much of their business as direct order and so they must have a comparable numbers of credit card purchases. One has a lot of complaints and the other doesn't. Very interesting, indeed. I just thought that you'd like to know for the next time quality control generalizations pop-up in these forums.<hr></blockquote>



    Except Dell probably does +10x business in direct sales vs Apple.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    [quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

    <strong>They don't need to have a glut of closely packed stores.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    A glut of closely packed stores?! There's only 27 of them, and they're on average about a hundred miles apart.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    I agree. 27 is still too few. Sorry if it sounded otherwise. But I think the aim of store openings ought to be to have 1 store in prominent/affluent areas of international cities. Smaller burbs can come latter (if they have a nice rich demographic). The lack of a retail presence scares people off Apple. But tey can't afford to go too fast, so their current pace is good. They just need to reach outside the US. I don't doubt that they will avoid the mistakes of some other retail outlets (like Chapters in Canada, and Gateway in the US). Apple Store needs to be international though.



    As to Dell, I doubt they do 10X the business of Apple (or even 10X the credit card business) They'd have about 35-40% of the market if that were true. They don't. It's around 13% globally: So three times more market share, but a lot more than three time the complaints.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    I know many people that would consider buying a Mac if there was only a store here in St. Louis...
  • Reply 5 of 14
    fran441fran441 Posts: 3,715member
    [quote]A glut of closely packed stores?! There's only 27 of them, and they're on average about a hundred miles apart.<hr></blockquote>



    Hehe.



    1.) Salem, NH Rockingham Park

    2.) Peabody, MA Northshore Mall

    3.) Cambridge, MA Cambridgeside Galleria

    4.) Farmington, CT Westfarms Mall (120 miles)

    5.) Albany, NY Crossgates Mall (140 miles)



    20% of the Apple Stores are with 150 miles of me.



    [ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: Fran441 ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 14
    knight26knight26 Posts: 12member
    [quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

    <strong>Today I had a conversation with a friend of mine looking to buy a laptop (powerbook).



    She hasn't used a mac before; read about powerbooks on Apple's web site, liked the features, and went looking around Toronto area retail for a vendor. Couldn't find one because she was looking at places like Office Place, and Futile Shop. This brought up some serious warantee/support questions for her. And pushed her into the general vicinity of IBM ThinkPads. She hasn't bought anything yet. I can tell she really wants that powerbook, but she is very worried that she will not be able to find adequate support for it.



    If only there were a store! I explained that Apple's service policy would allow her tyo ship the book in for repairs and gave her the name of two Apple vendors in T.O. -- EduConnect and CPUsed/PCUsed. But she wasn't thrilled. She doesn't want to buy it online, she wants to go into a store and play with one, and more importantly know that she can return it to that location for hands on service and general help. I explained that any of the big retail outlets were unlikely to give that kind of support for the systems they sell either, so she shouldn't single out Apple. Still the ABSENCE of an Apple Store is making this a much harder sell than it needs to be. Apple needs to expand Apple Stores into all of N.America and major European cities. They don't need to have a glut of closely packed stores. But one store in each major international metropolitan area would be great. For Canada: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Edmonton. And Ottawa too: lots of gov't money to be had there. In Europe and the UK: London, Paris, Milan, Rome, A few stores in Germany, Austria, and Belgium. Maybe 75 Stores world wide, with about 40 of them in the US.



    On to the insider info. Don't crucify me, but I suggested a Dell as one of the PC alternatives (only because she has a PC already, and I thought it might be worth it for her to look into their warantee practice if only for a point of reference). Her immediate answer was NO WAY!

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Matsu

    I agree with you that I think Apple should have some retail stores of there own here in Canada. I personally would love to see some open in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and maybe Calgary as a start.



    As for Toronto, why didn't you mention to your friend places like Computer Systems Centre or Carbon Compting. Both places have onsite servicing and pretty good show rooms. I know neither would be able to stand up to a True Apple retail Store though.



    Lets hope Apple comes through for us.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    Yes, Apple needs to get stores open in all major N. American cities. It will help with sales tremendously.



    I know that currently the stores are not registering many sales. But the impact of the stores remains unquantified. It is entirely possible that people are going into the stores, being exposed to macs for the first time, going home to mull it over, and then they order online as a direct result of the store's influence.



    I cannot see how these stores will not be a great shot in the arm for Apple...more like a shot in the vein--mainline! But Apple must get more stores open quickly.



    One can only wonder at what will happen when Apple finally has about 100 stores in N. America, all stocked with new iMacs, new PMG5s, and sweet laptops, and suddenly the US economy lurches into another period of expansion.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    tell me about it



    i live in the east bay area(california) and the only place that sells mac stuff that is less then 45 minutes away is compusa, and i still have to cross the carquinez straits, i live near vallejo, but nothing there either
  • Reply 9 of 14
    quoboboquobobo Posts: 2member
    Hmm.. I live in the general Vancouver area, and I feel no need for an official Apple store. The small third-party store in my town is good enough for me...
  • Reply 10 of 14
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    Another tidbit about credit card warantee extensions I learned in that conversation. They're useless on high loss/claim items. Electronica like laptops are specifically singled out in the small print. Thus those of us who were hoping to use an Amex blue (for instance) to double the manufacturer warantee on an laptop, would find that the actual dollar value of the warantee extension on that item is severely limited (to no more than a couple of hundred bucks). They don't advertise this, most credit card companies bury it in the small print.



    Just passing it on for the benefit of the of the other people on this board who might want to know. A while back some members of this and other boards were trumping this warantee extension 'feature' of certain credit cards. It won't help you at all in the majority of cases.



    And if Amex, Visa, or MC are monitoring these boards. Bite Me! You'll never guess my source.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    you know, after all the complaining people have done on these boards i would think it is self evident as to why Apple needs retail space.



    how many of us have left with a positive experience from CompUSA, Sears, Best Buy, or Circuit City?



    from my personal experience, a good apple display/employee is the exception to the rule.



    having their own retail space is the only way for apple to control the buyer's experience, and make sure it's a good one.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    mclaugd1mclaugd1 Posts: 25member
    I would step over my own mother for an Apple Store here in Ottawa. We do, however, have a great Mac store called BMac which appears geared toward the Mac hardware and artist types. The people there are really friendly and knowledgable. There's three stores in Montreal, one in Ottawa and I do believe they're looking at Toronto in the near future as well. I don't own a Mac and never had (except playing with a great emulator called Basilisk II) but once MacWorld New York is over, I'll be at BMac ordering a new PowerMac G4 (a G5 is all goes well at MW).



    I love you mom.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    skip_112skip_112 Posts: 17member
    Matsu, I'm not sure this will help, but there is a store at York University that might be able to help. It has been a year or so since i've been in there, but I remember it as being a decent store, sell mostly Apple products. They have displays and relitively knowledable staff.

    Hope that's helpful.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    That's educonnect. I know York inside-out, I can tell you where all the clean toilets are, but I probably won't cause then you might tell others, and I might find myself in an emergency without a clean bowl.



    I can't believe I forgot to mention Carbon Computing, definitely worth a visit.
Sign In or Register to comment.