Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

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Great point.

The article's example of the Apple store as a model of a retailer that "just plunks a glass cube on busy shopping streets" is pretty clueless. Most Apple stores are in malls!

I think the issue with Malls is that in 1980-something, your choices were dying downtowns, department stores or the Sears/LL Bean/whatever catalog. For food it was local places, McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's. The mall offered more choice for food and retail.

Nowadays, the traditional mall retailers are all consolidated and offer similar stuff. Why hang out in a food court when you have a dozen fast casual restaurant choices outside the mall?

> Most Apple stores are in malls!

Are they? Do you have data on that? I am by no means an expert on Apple stores but of the ones I've seen, only one was in a traditional enclosed mall.

In my experience, Apple stores are freestanding in dense urban centers, and located in shopping malls in suburban areas. I haven't seen any exceptions to this rule so far.

That's interesting, I've never seen a single freestanding Apple store before.

Yeah, is there one on the west coast? I know Seattle and Portland's Apple Stores are all in malls.

Freestanding stores are in Palo Alto, Los Gatos, and two in San Francisco.

Just the ones I know offhand.

There's also one inside Stonestown Mall: http://www.stonestowngalleria.com/search?search-query=apple

Two in Chicago (Lincoln Park and Mag Mile), but both of those areas are basically outdoor malls in a loose sense.

All of the Manhattan ones are, obviously.

They definitely have many stores in large urban centers. Click around on the store list, the majority are mall based.

If your city has a freestanding, non-outlet Gap, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel or Williams Sonoma, you are probably worthy of a freestanding Apple store. Otherwise, it will be in an upscale mall near those stores.

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