A few weeks ago, I walked into the San Francisco Apple store at around 7:30 at night, and it was packed with people. I was hoping to see the latest new products, but they were not in the store yet. That didn't deter the hundreds of people poking around the place. The line at the registers–oddly placed in the back of the store—were 20-people deep. The place was jumping. It was actually a scene. A happening. It was weird.
That's when it hit me: Apple stores around the country have proven once and for all that a targeted retail outlet designed to sell a line of products with a concise message is the key to success in the computer business. This was long since proven by the automobile industry, and it stuns me that only Apple has figured this out in the computer business.
The Failed Attempts of Others
The retail-store front has been tried by a few computer companies before Apple and have all failed for obvious reasons. CompuAdd, once a serious competitor with Dell and IBM, rolled out a number of stores which bankrupted the company. The stores were huge and were more like CompUSA than the Apple store. Too much stuff, no buzz.
IBM had a few stores prior to the Compu- Add experiment, and its stores did seem to have some buzz and activity. But they were more aimed at the professional market, and the company decided it didn't like the way the numbers looked, so it shuttered them all at once. These stores pre-dated the roll-out of OS/2 and the line of IBM Thinkpad computers. I think they would have set the world on fire if they'd been kept open during the laptop era. But no.
Gateway had a series of stores some years back called the Country Stores, which seemed to be doing well in rural areas not served by any other computer-selling outlets. But the stores themselves were boring and ominous. You didn't feel comfortable and you could not just breeze in and out without being harassed like you can with the Apple stores. For all practical purposes, the Gateway stores did to Gateway what the CompuAdd stores did to CompuAdd. Sunk them.
The latest iteration of all this, of course, is the Microsoft store. Its first try, back in San Francisco in 1999, reminded me of the layout of the toy department at Macy's in New York. Slick and professional. Too bad there was no buzz or energy in the place ever. I probably went into there three times, and there was never more than one other customer in the place. I have not visited the new flagship Microsoft store in Flagstaff, Arizona, but the photos I've seen show it as quite lively. Microsoft could easily use such a facility to promote its Phone 7 OS, the Xbox 360 and even the Zune, as well as other products that need a salesperson to promote.
Key to Success:
A Good Sales Team That's what is great about a storefront like this, salespeople. A good sales team can do more than move products; it actually helps the customer in the decision-making process. And unless they are screwed over by a salesperson, customers end up with a good feeling about the company.
During this harsh economic downturn, Apple has had little trouble surviving the rocky times. In fact, it has flourished. I seriously doubt that this would be true if it were not for the stores. The company would be doing well, but the stores are obviously adding a lot.
So should Dell, HP and perhaps Samsung or Acer roll out retail stores? Yes, they should. Samsung has so many product lines that you'd think it would have had stores by now. I think the company makes about everything from computers to phones to washing machines and refrigerators. It would be like a Sears store without the clothing.
Dell has been trying to get into the same product lines as Apple from the outset but cannot find a way to do stores. I think the company was scared off by the failures of IBM, CompuAdd, and Gateway. The company must know that there are retail experts who can figure out what went wrong with those and avoid the pitfalls. After all, that's what Apple did. The Apple stores are not just ad-libbed by Steve Jobs.
The tech scene in general could use some more of the buzz and energy you can find any night in an Apple store. Now that everyone knows exactly how to do it right, what are they waiting for?