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Comment by zalew | Hacker News Reader

"The difference between Apple and Best Buy"

why not difference between Apple and f.ex. Sony Center which are also designed to engage the customer, let him play with the product? I'm not a fan of Sony, but know many people who liked their stores, that's a better comparison than a supermarket.

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Well, it is somewhat relevant to Forbes, since Best Buy has been giving all the indicators of following Circuit City into oblivion and Forbes has commented about it recently. The Apple Store (and Sony Store) is a contrast in how a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box. Which is interesting, considering how long the Big Box retail scene has been considered the death of small independent shops. (Cue Elton John singing about the Circle of Life..)

The Best Buy in my neighborhood is more convenient by about 90m than the Apple Store. But I generally refuse to go to Best Buy for anything that I can't find on a pegboard, like cables or a USB drive. Everything else, I get random unavailability, clueless salespeople, and a really strange mildew smell from the upholstery.

Smells like doom, really.

> a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box.

are there some numbers to support that? I mean, f.ex. no of macbook pro and sony bravia or xbox sold in the supermarkets vs sold in brands' stores? I always get the feeling that such stores exist to keep appearances and attract new customers, not to work as a main selling point. selling 20 laptops through bestbuy is probably way cheaper and quicker than selling 20 laptops through it's own store.

For iphones:

http://allthingsd.com/20120323/best-buy-is-selling-nearly-as...

As far as laptops and computers go I don't know why it'd be cheaper for Apple to sell them through Best Buy. The prices are rigidly controlled and so their margin has to be lower for other retailers then when they sell direct.

I think Apple moves a lot of product through their own stores, but no idea what fraction compared to online or 3rd party. In contrast to Apple stores, where I've regularly seen people buy big ticket items like Macbook Pro, I've never seen anyone actually purchase anything from a Sony store. Maybe that's because I've never seen anyone in a Sony store (ha!).

This is anecdotal, and I haven't worked there for close to 5 years, but back when I was at a mall Apple store, our store was clocking more revenue per square foot than any other store in the (upscale) mall. If I remember correctly, it was by a factor of 2 or more. Granted, it was only a 30 foot store, and the items are pretty big ticket anyway, rent there is more expensive etc etc, but all that being said, Apple stores are REALLY good at selling Apple products.

I once heard that the rent was $6,000 a month for a cart in one of the prime areas at our upscale mall. Usually these sell bamboo plants or cell phone accessories.

I wonder if your store was average for the AAPL universe.

Apple stores are the highest grossing retail stores in the world by a significant margin. Apple Stores produce over $5,600 per square foot. The next highest retailer is Tiffany, at a little under $3,000. The median for the top 20 retailers is well under $1,000 per square foot.

It's important to keep in mind that going into retail looked absolutely ridiculous when Apple announced their first retail store, for some of the reasons you have enumerated. Gateway was what people thought of as a computer retailer, and they were dying. Execution matters.

I can't remember the figures, but at my Apple store interview, they claimed to be one of the top grossing stores in the world (in terms of gross per square foot).

Funny you compare with Sony. Sony has a store in New York (on Madison I think) that I tried to check out a couple times. Except it closes at like 5pm. In New York. A few blocks away there's an Apple store that never closes. As they put, the city that never sleeps needs a store that never sleeps.

Sony stores are not quite Best Buy, but they've only captured about 10% of the experience that makes Apple stores different.

There's only like 2 dozen Sony Retail stores so the bulk of the audience wouldn't be familiar with them. On top of that the Sony stores seem to be based on the Apple experience so the contrast wouldn't be as clear?

the Apple experience is based on the GAP experience, and it's not about contrast, it's about comparing stores that are worth comparing.

Because the story wouldn't produce as many pageviews.

They're trying to compare typical buying experiences. The typical place one buys an Apple laptop is in an Apple store, or Apple-designed section of another store. Sony laptops are much more often sold in the section with the crappy hodgepodge of Windows laptops that any electronics store has.

both products can be bought anywhere including the internet. the main reason branded stores exist at all is the appearance and controlling the experience, engaging with the customer in an environment where the only competing products are of their own brand. bestbuy type stores work the opposite way: fill it with lots of products of various brands and prices so anybody can walk out with something and the staff can redirect the client to the competition at any time. btw sony sections in the tv dept of many markets are also better looking.

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