Microsoft's First Retail Store Opens

I really liked the idea when they announced they would open their own stores. Looking at the pictures: the store seems pretty plain. I was expecting a little more visual/high tech creativity.
 
I think that's the one in Scottsdale, AZ.
Right in the middle of a huge upscale mall called Scottsdale Fashion Center.

I applied for two jobs there but they turned me down.

I think I blew it on the psych test.

They had a question about a kid crying on a playground and I answered, " Just keep walking"

Guess I'm not Microsoft's "kind" of person..

:p
 
jwalk6 said:
So.

If it weren't for the Iphone those stores would have shut down by now...

:cool:
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The Apple Store was the most profitable retail space per square foot in the country before the iPhone. More than Tiffany's, more than Wal-Mart. Its no wonder Microsoft also wants a piece of that action.
 
Serpico said:
The Apple Store was the most profitable retail space per square foot in the country before the iPhone. More than Tiffany's, more than Wal-Mart. Its no wonder Microsoft also wants a piece of that action.
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Where'd you find that figure? :p
 
I agree, Cite your sources. And why wouldn't MS use a pre-existing proven business model? especially in retail. Apple gambled and it paid of, MS noticed in jumped in the pool. The retail model has been there since the dawn of time, to think apple "started" it, is just ridiculous.
 
tjwenger said:
I agree, Cite your sources.
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Well, he is usually spot-on in observation. I'm just wondering who came up with the profit/sq foot metric.
And why wouldn't MS use a pre-existing proven business model? especially in retail. Apple gambled and it paid of, MS noticed in jumped in the pool. The retail model has been there since the dawn of time, to think apple "started" it, is just ridiculous.
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I think that's what was said. :p
 
rflcptr said:
Where'd you find that figure? :p
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Old old news, you should pay attention:

http://www.redherring.com/Home/20332
http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/apples-profit-per-square-foot-beats-best-buy-and-tiffanyco/
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_Retail_Stores_Outperform_Tiffanys_Best_Buy/

This was back in December 2006, before the announcement of the iPhone and a full 18 months before it launched. Based on their quarterlies filed earlier this week the sales figures are even larger now.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/08...5-000-per-square-foot-gross-on-fifth-ave-can/
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...ost-profitable-shop-in-london-for-its-size.do
 
tjwenger said:
The retail model has been there since the dawn of time, to think apple "started" it, is just ridiculous.
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Of course, but the important thing is that they were the first ones to really make it work, and it was all for very specific reasons that other retailers are catching onto now. These articles give pretty good reasons as to how succeeded at retail while companies like Gateway, Dell, and Circuit City did not:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/03/19/8402321/index.htm
http://www.redherring.com/Home/20332

I found the section in the CNN Money article on them building prototype stores in a giant warehouse to be really interesting, especially since what they learned in that prototyping phase are all things that are in these new Microsoft stores, as far as organizing by function and purpose rather than hardware.

Like everything else Apple, they don't necessarily do things first, but they sure as hell know how to execute really well. The fact that Microsoft's stores are so reminiscent of Apple's retail space is telling (plus it would be a bummer if they decided to break over 25 years of tradition :))
 
Serpico said:
I found the section in the CNN Money article on them building prototype stores in a giant warehouse to be really interesting, especially since what they learned in that prototyping phase are all things that are in these new Microsoft stores, as far as organizing by function and purpose rather than hardware.
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I think that's a decent point, too. The only Apple store I've been inside was in Tulsa, but it was pretty clear while I was there that things were organized in such a way that customers could identify with the systems easily. You want screen real estate but limited physical presence? There's the range of iMac setups. You want raw horsepower? There's the Mac Pro section. Power and mobility? MBPs, right in the center of the floor. Just here for music? Yup, iPods right there. Etc. Another small thing is that there is space between the display systems. Amongst ~50 people in there, I could still play with things without bumping into people.

Going into Best Buy, and seeing 500 similarly priced, often times differently (even if slightly) spec'd systems will no doubt leave customers asking a ton of questions and spending a bunch of time doing so. Try asking an employee what system is best for video editing, for example. Not to mention them cramming every single little netbook and notebook on as little shelf space as possible. Hmm, will this Atom system play HD movies or WoW well? But it says HD screen! I guess all of that goes along with the "race to the bottom" pricing.
 
It is all very logical and thought out. The way most retail space is put together makes little sense; it is either designed by committee (thus lacking clear direction) or by someone with no organizational and ergonomic skills whatsoever.

This is before we get into issues of shelf clutter, ugly color, poor fluorescent lighting, etc. Circuit City stores were absolutely unpleasant places to be in, forget shop in. Who wants to be inside an ugly place?
 
It reminds me a lot of the company store at Redmond.

Also, Apple didnt do it first. They were just the first to do it right, depending greatly on a ravinous fanbase thats willing to overpay for crap. As mentioned, Dell and Gateway tried it. The problem with them is they didnt have the profit % that Apple does (since its the same hardware, just overpriced).
 
Serpico said:
Its cute whenever someone tries to pin "fanboy" whenever they hear something they don't like, especially when its on someone like me or other posters here that sees positives in most major platforms out there. I call the good and bad on what any company does, simple.
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Now Now... When you have no logical response or contradicting evidence, everyone knows you play the "Fanboy" card. It's like, "so is your face," which always wins an argument. No questions.
 
Gibbage said:
It reminds me a lot of the company store at Redmond.

Also, Apple didnt do it first. They were just the first to do it right, depending greatly on a ravinous fanbase thats willing to overpay for crap. As mentioned, Dell and Gateway tried it. The problem with them is they didnt have the profit % that Apple does (since its the same hardware, just overpriced).
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Neither Dell nor Gateway stocked any inventory either. I've tried to buy hardware from both stores and they both either offered to put together the order to be shipped to me or pointed me to their website. WTF is the point of a store if there is zero possibility of walking out with anything?

And as discussed earlier, the way the shops were organized was more along the lines of other electronics stores, something that was very different in the Apple Store since the organizational emphasis was on function rather than the machine itself. Very logical.

As for overpriced, not at all, there are just no low margin computers, big difference. Apple's all-in-ones, Xeon workstations, and ultraslims are extremely price very competitively with other PC manufacturers. The recently discontinued 24" iMac was faster, with double storage, with a better H-IPS panel, than a Dell XPS One for the same price. The new 27" and 21.5" iMacs are very new updates and as such completely dominate the field in price and performance, so I'm curious to see what Dell and HP respond with.

If you want a cheap computer, no, you don't go there, but if you're paying for their mid and top end machines then they're definitely not out of line with a comparable machine by Dell, HP, etc.
 
Arcygenical said:
Now Now... When you have no logical response or contradicting evidence, everyone knows you play the "Fanboy" card. It's like, "so is your face," which always wins an argument. No questions.
Click to expand...

This is true, although "Your mom _______" or "_____ your mom" is the ultimate in winning any discussion.
 
Serpico said:
The Apple Store was the most profitable retail space per square foot in the country before the iPhone. More than Tiffany's, more than Wal-Mart. Its no wonder Microsoft also wants a piece of that action.
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Sorry to rile any possible Apple fanboys. Apple guys will pay anything so it's no surprise the stores made money when they opened up. 3 grand for 900 bucks of hardware is a nice margin.

I still say they'd be shut down if it weren't for the Iphone AND Ipod.

:cool:
 
jwalk6 - Considering that companies like Dell charge the same or more than Apple does for less hardware for their all-in-ones, multi-CPU Xeon workstations, and ultraslim notebooks, I call BS on you.

:cool:

The significant difference is that Apple doesn't compete in the no-margin econobox arena that Dell and HP do. The prices and profit margins in the areas that they do build computers in (all-in-ones, workstations) are pretty much in line with the rest of the industry. The thing is that rest of the industry can't convince people to buy the machines in that premium area, and the rest of us that are willing to drop that kind of cash on a PC generally build it ourselves instead of going with a Voodoo, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc (I type as I look at the 256GB SSD on my desk and the ready-to-be-filled Obsidian 800D case on the floor :eek:)
 
Indeed. Apple is a niche company. Just like over here, in one specific mall for example, there's an HP store, a Sony store, and then an Apple store near each other. The first two are all "PCs" so they're direct competitors. The Apple store is only indirectly competing with the other two as it only does so through the substitution effect.

Then in another mall there's Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Sony, and Apple. The first four are direct competitors, the last isn't.

But I still don't get why Macs are different from PCs. What's the difference, besides being more expensive and having an OS from Apple?
 
Saying Apple makes the most sales per square foot is a bit..... misleading I think. Sure if you look at the straight numbers they do. BUT - Apple has FAR fewer stores than Best Buy does. Apple is, to say the least, Cherry picking their customers - How many stores does Apple have in Idaho for example? Answer: 0 Best Buy: 4

How about Washington: Apple 4 - and all of those are clustered around the high income Seattle/Bellevue area. Best Buy? Well, their site won't show me all their locations in WA, but I can tell you for certain it's way more than 4, and they are all over the state. Also BB locations are far bigger. So sure their sales per square foot will be lower. Apple has 275 stores. BB has 1,150. I'm actually surprised the difference between the two averages isn't higher given the difference in square footage / number of stores.

My point is that using statistics like that is a very one dimensional look at things.
 
looks like the apple store too much, would like to see some comfortable furniture, and some complimentary drinks.
 
Rockjay420 said:
looks like the apple store too much, would like to see some comfortable furniture, and some complimentary drinks.
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The Nokia store looks like the Apple store too...as well as the Sony Ericsson store, the Logitech store, the Genius store, the Toshiba store, the Asus store, the Acer store, the HP store, and barring the type of goods being sold, even the Nike store, Adidas store, Puma store, Zara store, Debenhams Store, Forever 21 store...they all look like the Apple store too.
 
Serpico said:
jwalk6 - Considering that companies like Dell charge the same or more than Apple does for less hardware for their all-in-ones, multi-CPU Xeon workstations, and ultraslim notebooks, I call BS on you.

:cool:

The significant difference is that Apple doesn't compete in the no-margin econobox arena that Dell and HP do. The prices and profit margins in the areas that they do build computers in (all-in-ones, workstations) are pretty much in line with the rest of the industry. The thing is that rest of the industry can't convince people to buy the machines in that premium area, and the rest of us that are willing to drop that kind of cash on a PC generally build it ourselves instead of going with a Voodoo, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc (I type as I look at the 256GB SSD on my desk and the ready-to-be-filled Obsidian 800D case on the floor :eek:)
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So I guess it's ok to pay 250 bucks for a $100 4850 with an apple tweak in the card bios or $500 for a sub 1 Terabyte 5400RPM hard drive option? They are proprietary even with a current Intel platform. I've heard they're talking to IBM again to produce their own hardware again. Probably to quiet the groundswell of people who want MAC OS on their pc's. There's nothing about an Apple that demands the price premium except the fact that Apple has a share price of $204.

Take a top of the line Apple and put it up against a top of the line PC and you're going to find the PC is going to give you at least a half generation better hardware and better value for your dollar. You've still got many current gen macs running Pre-Nehalem Xeons and Core 2's!

Just for the record, I do own a Mac albeit a dual processor Quicksilver with 10.4 Tiger on it. I bought it for $150 used and had to spend another $200 to get it where I wanted it. So much for resale value.

It certainly runs better than the equivalent generation pc but it's also running in a sandbox. DOS ran great on 386's too but I could only do so much with DOS.

Apple stores aren't full of people buying macbooks and towers. They're buying Ipods and Iphones.

I reject your BS call and call borderline fanboy on you.
 
I am basing my argument completely on pricing out equivalent hardware on Apple and Dell's websites, that's it. Again, price equivalent Mac Pros against Dimensions and iMacs versus XPS Ones. Well, compare last week's 24" iMacs since they've been discontinued, since today's $1700 27" iMac absolutely smokes an $1800 XPS One in every conceivable way even more than it did before. The old iMac was faster, with a better display, all for the same price or less, fact. Its up to see what Dell's response is to the 27" now.

As I've said many times, Apple's main hole is the lack of a desktop with consumer grade CPUs and PCI-E expansion, and its a big hole, absolutely, IMO Xeons have questionable value for 99% of users out there, but for the machines that they do offer (all-in-ones, Xeon workstations), they are far from overpriced, they're right in line with or actually better prices than the competition in some cases.

And where are you seeing $500 for a 1TB drive? You're pulling figures out of thin air.

In fact, I just checked both websites. Apple's option for adding an additional 1TB 3Gb SATA in a Mac Pro: $300. Dell's price for the same additional 1TB 3.0Gb/s SATA HD in a Dimension? $550

Of course you're going to now talk about how everyone should be buying upgrades from Newegg, how PC manufacturer upgrades are overpriced, etc etc, and I agree, but its hilarious how people immediately swap that argument around when they're losing.

Finally, pay attention to Apple's quarterly financials, the bulk of their net income was from notebook sales, not iPhones (big as that piece of the pie is), and certainly not iPods.

No "borderline fanboy" here, just hard numbers and facts. Kudos though for holding back on the typical desperation move of pulling out the old "fanboy" card, even if it was halfassed. ;)
 
Serpico said:
I am basing my argument completely on pricing out equivalent hardware on Apple and Dell's websites, that's it. Again, price equivalent Mac Pros against Dimensions and iMacs versus XPS Ones. Well, compare last week's 24" iMacs since they've been discontinued, since today's $1700 27" iMac absolutely smokes an $1800 XPS One in every conceivable way even more than it did before. The old iMac was faster, with a better display, all for the same price or less, fact. Its up to see what Dell's response is to the 27" now.

As I've said many times, Apple's main hole is the lack of a desktop with consumer grade CPUs and PCI-E expansion, and its a big hole, absolutely, IMO Xeons have questionable value for 99% of users out there, but for the machines that they do offer (all-in-ones, Xeon workstations), they are far from overpriced, they're right in line with or actually better prices than the competition in some cases.

And where are you seeing $500 for a 1TB drive? You're pulling figures out of thin air.

In fact, I just checked both websites. Apple's option for adding an additional 1TB 3Gb SATA in a Mac Pro: $300. Dell's price for the same additional 1TB 3.0Gb/s SATA HD in a Dimension? $550

Of course you're going to now talk about how everyone should be buying upgrades from Newegg, how PC manufacturer upgrades are overpriced, etc etc, and I agree, but its hilarious how people immediately swap that argument around when they're losing.

Finally, pay attention to Apple's quarterly financials, the bulk of their net income was from notebook sales, not iPhones (big as that piece of the pie is), and certainly not iPods.

No "borderline fanboy" here, just hard numbers and facts. Kudos though for holding back on the typical desperation move of pulling out the old "fanboy" card, even if it was halfassed. ;)
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It was really that important to you huh?
Wow, far be it from me to challenge all your "research"

Have a great day!

:cool:
 
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