From the monthly archives:
Apple’s seven Japan retail stores are holding special events to celebrate oshogatsu, New Year’s Day, which is generally considered the country’s biggest annual holiday. The store events include DJ appearances, workshops for kids, and the traditional fukubukuro, or Lucky Bags.
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It’s been 10 months since the future Chinook Centre store in Calgary (Alb., Canada) was first revealed, and now a space has finally become available and a lease signed on space #125 at the mall. The Reitman’s clothing store is moving out of their ground-floor space by the end of next March, freeing up 3,651 square-feet for Apple. It will be the fifth Canadian store when it opens next fall, and will be the western-most store in the country.
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Apple late-filed its fiscal 2006 financial statement with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this morning, taking an $84 million charge related to stock option grants between 1997 and 2002, and revealing more financial information about its Retail segment operation. The company had previously released sales and profit figures for the retail stores. But in this latest filing, Apple revealed that it will substantially increase capital expenditures for the stores during 2007 to $360 million. The company spent $200 million and $132 million on retail capital expenditures during fiscal 2006 and 2005 respectively. Apple tallied its current retail employee staff at 5,787, and said that retail lease commitments now total $887 million, up from $609 million at the end of fiscal 2005. The company’s expense for high-profile stores increased slightly to $33 million, compared to $31 million in 2005. For full financial information, check the Charts & Graphs page.
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The DigiTimes Web site claims that “Apple opens first large retail store in Taiwan,” with a December 23rd grand opening in Taipei that featured commemorative T-shirts. But a look at Apple’s own Taiwanese Web site reveals that it’s actually a new reseller store in Guanghua Market. The store features the usual bright-white interior of Apple Centers, occupying 4,200 square-feet over three floors. The ground floor features product display space, the second floor an Internet café and presentation space, and the third floor offers a repair facility. There have been rumors of future, official Apple stores beyond Japan, including in Korea, Hong Kong, the Phillipines and Taiwan. However, for now the company continues to rely upon resellers to market its products in Asia. [check these flicker photos of the store.]
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Even as a grand opening video has disappeared from the Web, another amazing Apple-produced video has appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog site. The five-minute video was filmed in the Glendale Galleria store, and intended for internal distribution, encouraging employees to process more purchases with handheld computers, and to reach a 20 percent goal. The video features actor Brian Maslow singing and dancing with a stubble beard, special effects, extras filled from the ranks of store employees, and a giant EZ Pay computer costume. The video was directed by Nick Prevas, who has previously done shorter films and documentaries. View this video quick before it’s pulled at Apple’s demand.
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Thanks to Adolfo for the photos of the authorized Apple reseller in the town of Fortaleza (Brazil), a city of 2.4 million residents. The store has large show windows, wooden display furniture and the typical Apple Center look.
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Apple controls every detail of its retail store experience, but it can’t control the environment outside. So when Apple posted a photo of the San Francisco store on a prominent downtown corner, it did some extensive Photoshopping of the image to clean it up. Apple’s artists took out overhead power lines, power poles and even inserted a four-story building. Compare the two buildings and see if you can spot the differences.
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A reminder that Apple typically sweeps up the refreshed, refurbished and otherwise manhandled merchandise that’s collected during the month, and then markets it via an unmarked sale table at the end of each month. The pressure to sell, sell, sell is particularly high at the end of each quarter at these tables. Merchandise ranges from $12 cables to $2,499 computers, although many items are usually in the “accessory” category.
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The MacInChina Web site reports that three more authorized Apple resellers have opened in China in the past five days, all in smaller towns outside Beijing.
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The amazing new shopping center Kanyon opened in Istanbul (Turkey) last May, offering 400,000 square-feet of retail space, 26 tower floors of offices, and 179 luxury residences. Among the retailers opening in the mini-city is the Apple Center, offering the country’s first opportunity to actually approach, touch and use Apple Mac and iPod products. The outdoor mall maintains its own climate, and also hosts many American and European high-end retailers.
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You may know that Apple takes video of its store grand openings, most recently using HD-capable camcorders. The videos are distributed internally, but now the Trafford Centre (UK) store opening video has appeared on the MacTV Web site [Not surprisingly, the video was deleted about Dec. 25th at Apple's demand.]. The movie includes behind-the-scenes views of the store being stocked by the store employees, including some interesting time-lapse sequences. It also includes some short, on-camera comments by the store manager and assistant manager, the long grand opening waiting line, and the opening itself. The movie appears to have been edited in Final Cut Pro, and frequently had three or four video windows moving on-screen. The video doesn’t reveal any secrets, but it does offer insights into some of the hard work–and good spirit–of the store employees to prepare a store for opening.
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A Weymouth (Mass.) police officer may have saved the life of an Apple store burglary suspect by stopping his car for having a license plate covered with a brown plastic bag. Joseph Dillon, 48, was bleeding heavily from wounds that police say occurred when he smashed the front glass window of the Derby Street Shoppes Apple store in Hingham (Mass.) with a pipe wrench at about 1:30 a.m. Dillon apparently cut his arms on the way in–and the way out of the store as he lugged 56 stolen iPods ($19,600) in a pink plastic tub. “He was very lucky he was stopped by police or he could have bled to death,†Weymouth Lt. George Greenwood told a reporter. Dillon was treated at a hospital and jailed, where officers learned he was already wanted on several warrants. Read more and see a photo here. The Carrefour Laval (Canada) store was reportedly burglarized last week, with many computers and several iPods taken.
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Apple is making it easy to purchase iPods, and even laptops at the larger stores, during the crowded holiday season. Like last year, at least one table at each store has been cordoned off and converted into an EZ Pay check-out station, and stocked with iPods to allow shoppers to grab-and-go. Each table has an iMac that displays instructions on how to select your product, pay and obtain an e-mail receipt. At some of the larger stores, a second table has been converted into a similar station for MacBook laptops, allowing even big-ticket buyers to zip in and out of the store with their holiday purchase. The areas are staffed by employees equipped with the portable computers that debuted last holiday season to speed up the check-out process and e-mail a receipt to the buyer.
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The AppleInsider Web site reports that Apple has finalized real estate transactions to open a store along Princes Street in the central business district of Edinburgh (Scotland), opening some time in 2007. In October tipsters revealed that Apple will open a store in downtown Glasgow. The Princes Street store will have a view of the spectacular Edinburgh Castle, set on a 400 feet cliff above the 38-acre Princes Street Gardens.
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The MacOnline authorized Apple reseller chain has opened a branch in Concepción (Chile), a city of about 380,000 along the central western coast of South America. The 1,000 square-foot store uses the familiar black-and-white color scheme of early U.S. Apple stores, and the light-wood furniture of current stores. It includes a service (aka “Genius”) bar, but space constraints left out a ‘kids’ section and theater. MacOnline opened a store in the capitol of Santiago last January. Thanks to Mariano for these photos of the store.
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