Apple Stores earned $481,000 per employee in 2010 | Hacker News Reader

Apple Stores earned $481,000 per employee in 2010

pcmag.com

36 pointsukdm27 comments

"Dediu refers to the giant gap between the cash Apple hauls in and what it pays its retail staff as Apple Store workers' "productivity." We'd guess there's probably another word for it, somewhere outside of the economist's lexicon."

Does the author of this article realise that different products have different markups? That Apple actually has to make these computers also? That a fair way to compare employee renumeration is directly, rather than through some random metric?

As an employee, I would rather earn $9 at store A selling $1000 worth of products than $5 at store B selling $6 dollars worth of products!

Do professional sports people feel taken advantage of? Cause you know, they get quite a small percentage of the total take of TV advertising that leverages off of their work.

/Rant Over. Wow, I wish more people studied Econ 101

"That Apple actually has to make these computers also?"

Indeed. Why would a salesperson at an Apple store be entitled to more than the going rate for retail work? Merely because an Apple /engineer/ did an outstanding job? That's nonsense.

Can Apple store employees show outstanding performance relative to other distribution channels? Relative to other stores, or to online sales? If so then the retail employee is producing value and there are grounds to demand higher compensation.

But if the cash haul is universal across distribution channels, which it is according to the article, then the folks entitled to a bonus are working back at 1 Infinite Loop.

> Merely because an Apple /engineer/ did an outstanding job? That's nonsense.

Furthermore, from what I've heard, Apple engineers don't get more than the going rate either for doing an outstanding job of executing the outstanding /designer/ vision. And neither do most of the people who work at design in apple.

But the outstanding /executives/ do actually get more than the going rate. That includes the heads of design, engineering and sales.

Yes, professional sports people do feel taken advantage of. Did you not just see the NBA lock-out? Players genuinely feel like management is taking advantage of them. See this excellent Bill Simmons analysis over at Grantland: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-pers...

Very good point! My argument is that feeling taken advantage of does not necessarily mean that you are being taken advantage of, at least in an economic sense.

That's a stupid, stupid metric.

Most good Oracle sales staff would be probably be generating at least an order of magnitude more than that, and they don't have to cover the costs of the fancy Apple store fitouts. OTOH, they do have to cover a lot of airplane tickets and expensive lunches.

Looking at revenue per employee in only one business segment is meaningless.

It is totally, completely and utterly irrelevant as a measure of anything.

It's totally, completely and utterly relevant as a measure of Apple's prowess in _retail_.

It's insufficient information for that.

Without knowing how much the stores cost to setup & run you can't guess the margin.

    "Dediu reckons that the average Apple store employee creates sales at the rate of about $278 per hour."

Creates sales? What percentage of people wander into an Apple store and buy solely on the sales pitch of the retail worker?

At the margin, each additional hire likely does create additional revenue. Otherwise, Apple would be laying people off at their stores. If anything, Apple stores feel a bit understaffed. After all, most purchases can't be made without an employee; if you have to wait 30 minutes to be helped, there's an increased chance you'll abandon your purchase.

Seems they've recently gone in a new direction in these regards: You can now make purchases yourself using your iphone and the app store app: "Apple Store" - where you can check yourself out with a purchase and walk out of the store.

http://itunes.com/apps/applestore

Here’s what you can do with the Apple Store app on your iPhone or iPod touch: - Buy products on the go and pick them up at your favorite Apple Retail Store, or have  them shipped to your door. - Personalize an iPad or an iPod with free engraving, plus get signature gift wrapping for  select Apple products. - Buy an iPhone with just a few taps.* - While in an Apple Store, quickly purchase accessories on your own with EasyPay  (requires iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S) ...

That's revenue, not profit. "Earned" is the wrong word to use.

How much is the profit margin per item sold in an Appple store? Even if it is 20%, that's still only about $96K per employee. And if all of this 20% profit was given to the employee, after various taxes and benefits, it would still amount to not much; around $48K in salary.

I'm not sold on this number as a metric of much of anything.

Serious question - why not?

1) Does it count Genius Bar or backroom service employees? Should it?

2) Does it count full or part time workers? If yes, are they counted the same? If not, why not?

3) A corner convenience store / gas station probably has higher numbers. Is that meaningful?

4) What about channel conflict (ie, Apple Web Store as a marketing channel for physical stores)... should those employees also be added in?

5) Not a single retail employee works on designing and developing a single Apple product (nor should they). Those costs directly impact the profitability of the store, so leaving them out is disingenuous.

Definitely good points. I doubt questions like those will get answered by Apple, though, unfortunately. Would be interesting, though.

Heaven help us if the author of this article does similar math for each engineer at Apple.

That's revenue, not earnings. BIG difference (earnings << revenue due to operating costs, etc).

People don't work at Apple for the pay.

They work at Apple because they love the products, culture and people. Sure pay is a factor in the decision but I think the type of people who work at apple work their mainly because they believe in what Apple stands for. Challenging the status quo by thinking differently.

*I don't work at apple but I do have a few friends who do.

So, they work for free?

For Apple people usually want compensation but I think compensation is not the main reason they work there.

Charities get people to work for free because those people believe in the cause the charity stands for. People will take a job at Apple with less pay then another offer because they believe in what Apple stands for.

Econ 101? Sounds like we need to remember Business 101.

Yes, it's revenue not earnings (profit), but a) as a manufacturer, Apple earns more profit on a sale than Best Buy, which b) makes how much more money they're earning all the more impressive relative to a retailer like Best Buy.

I create $0.00 of value for the company, because I'm building and not selling my product. (rolls eyes)

Well Google earns, what, $1.1 million per employee?

This is just for the stores. Apple as a whole has 108B revenue and 60.4k employees, so ~ $1.7 million per employee. (numbers from wikipedia)

that's revenues but profit it's around 429K per employee which is still ridiculously high.

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