Apple Store the high street utopia

With Apple, branding and design are core parts of the DNA and Steve Jobs was unhappy selling Apple products through third party stores. He wanted the Apple store so that he could directly change Apple’s relationship with its customers and to bring into their full control the presentation of Apple products and the brand message. Once the prototype of a store was approved we could see in the first locations that the Apple brand design DNA was present in the stores and some of these have won design awards.

This is a good illustration of the dangers of brand dilution when your product is located amongst a sea of competing products in a third-party retail space, this has to make the brand marketing the product work harder to differentiate itself and it shows by having a sole brand retail space can make marketing somewhat easier and focus customer attention. However more than a decade has past and Apple is trying to increase market share in locations where it does not have a store. Here it has partnered with other retail outlets to introduce a ‘store within a store’ concept. This will have all the branding and design of the Apple store and will have Apple store employees, this mitigates the risk of brand dilution but does increase the amount of brand competition.

When you look at an Apple store you see that the design is very clean with wooden display tables and neutral colours where the Apple logo is prominent. When you walk into the store you see tables of computers, laptops and tablets where devices are grouped by type. This is useful as it allows customers with different requirements space to look at the devices they are interested in, but also allows them to see other products in the portfolio. For example, someone can come in to look at a laptop but there will be an adjacent table of tablets and this can nudge the customer into buying an additional companion product.

Here we see how the layout is evolving

But here we are talking about design and layout and in the Apple store this can be a bit clinical, however what is the key for making this store a success? It is the staff who are living representations of the Apple brand, when you walk into the store your first impressions of the staff are good as they are well dressed and give you a friendly welcome. It is obvious that they have a good level of product knowledge but give you space to look around, they are attentive and will quickly come to answer any questions. Apple do recognise that they have to support their staff and the business has a range of employee benefits

Apple employee benefits

The layout of the store is very interesting as the tables displaying the devices are in the front part of the store, however at the back of the store are the shelves of the accessories and other consumable products, this is interesting to examine as the range of products some of which are supplied by third party business has been filtered so as not to greatly contrast with the Apple design ethos , contrast this with going into a normal electronics store and seeing a wide range of colours and package designs. However, do not see this as a problem in the Apple store as the fact that Apple are very specific with their supply chain partners means that there is less risk of a third party issue damaging their relationship with their customers.

Here the layout of the store helps the knowledgeable staff leverage additional sales, for example going to pay for a tablet or laptop requires you to go with the staff member to the sales desk which is surrounded by all these useful (and profitable) accessories and the sales staff can upsell these to the customer at the point of sale.

Apple know that they have good customer loyalty and retention but this is not something that is guaranteed and ongoing customer service is key. Even Apple products are complex and can have problems which are difficult for the user to resolve, also some people are not comfortable with telephone or online computer support. What is very good is that in each store there is a ‘Genius bar’ which is a dedicated service and support area where you can take your computer or tablet for repair and support by a trained support specialist. There is a limitation with the Genius Bar in that they struggle to repair older legacy equipment (defined by Apple) but you are then in a store where you can buy a replacement computer.

Interestingly some of the new stores are including a ‘The Studio’ space where you can meet with a ‘Creative’ and get support with projects such as photo and video editing. Apple competes against Microsoft to supply workstations to creative people and this is a good way for Apple to make their products sticky – for example an IPAD may struggle to render video but there will be a powerful Apple computer which can do that and that is a subtle nudge upsell.

As with the business the stores are relentlessly on message regarding brand management and in some aspects for the believer going into the Apple store is a pseudo religious experience which I find somewhat overwhelming (like going into a Bang and Olufsen store), but could it be more fun as there are unusual and interesting products in the store such as drones and custom accessories. Overall anyone would have a good customer experience and we can see this wherever there is an Apple store.