Apple’s retail stores in Japan are in the midst of the celebration of traditional Golden Week holiday, during which the country’s six stores hold special workshops that highlight the company’s products. The free one-hour sessions focus on using iChat to keep in touch with family and friends, kids media and family photos and albums. The Ginza store is selling special customized iPod cases, and there are other special presentations during the week. The holiday is the collection of four separate holidays, and is of of the nation’s three major celebratory periods.
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The job of scouting out future Apple retail store sites usually falls to fellow enthusiasts in distant cities and towns, since I can’t travel everywhere. I receive lots of e-mail each day providing tips, photos, maps and other information about up-coming sites. But there’s more work to be done! After the break, check my list of identified future store locations that need to be better defined. read more…
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Apple enthusiasts in Pennsylvania had better be prepared to drive unless they happen to live in the eastern or western portion of the state. Residents in the middle of the state are at least a two-hour drive away from an official Apple store. But now Apple is moving slightly closer to the middle of the state with a future store at the Park City Center in Lancaster. The mall operated by General Growth serves not only the city’s 470,000 residents, but draws from a wide surrounding area. The store could open before this Christmas.
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The southern coast of Florida is peppered with Apple stores, apparently taking advantage of both the tourists and well-heeled residents who demand the best. Now Apple will fill out its coverage of Miami with another store inside the Dadeland Mall south of the city’s center. The huge 1.4 million square-foot mall is home to the usual cast of Apple neighbors, and is just four miles north of the existing Apple store at The Falls. There are another six stores further north, up the coast. This new store could open before Christmas.
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After several months of anonymous construction, the familiar white Apple logo has appeared on a black construction barricade at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Honolulu. On-going coverage of the future store by Mark shows that workers performed some heavy-duty structural work on the two-story location, and now have begun to work on the exterior, which will be dark-colored stone instead of the traditional stainless steel. The store should open by Fall.
read more…
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Sources within the real estate industry have confirmed that Apple has indeed signed a lease agreement for an unknown building on Princess Street in Edinburgh (Scotland) for a future retail store. The street has historically been the pinnacle of shopping in the city, but in recent years has turned into a hodge-podge of smaller retailers. A recent series of workshops brought public and private representatives together to discuss how to revitalize the picturesque street across from the city’s hilltop castle. In this case, Apple is waiting for the current tenant’s lease to expire, but are already making plans to begin construction as soon as that occurs. The store will most likely open during 2009.
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Apple tracks the revenue performance of its retail stores in real time at the Cupertino (Calif.) headquarters, and can immediately spot purchase trends, new product success, returns and other activities. Now, that technology is reportedly being extended to managers at the stores themselves with special software installed on an iPhone, allow them to track sales, inventory and employee performance. The software will also include complete contact information for the store employees, along with maps and contact information for other stores in the chain, creating a wireless, mobile source of valuable retail information.
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Apple’s retail stores continue to tally big revenues and profits, and to draw an increasing number of new-to-Mac buyers from both the consumer and business sectors. So now it’s time for a change that reflects the new mix of visitors and buyers. Starting Monday, Apple will rename three job titles to provide more clarity and better reflect their broader range of duties: Mac Genius will become simply Genius, Mac Specialist will become Specialist, and Business Consultants will become Business Partners. Employee clothing will change to better distinguish their roles: behind-the-bar Genius and Creative employees will continue to wear dark blue, while Specialists will now wear light blue T-shirts–the same color now worn by Concierges, who will now wear bright orange T-shirts. Business Partners will take on a more professional appearance with dark blue, buttoned-down shirts (polo?) with “Business” embroidered on the sleeve next to the Apple logo. The back-of-house gang will wear the traditional black T-shirts. Lastly, store employees will receive new business cards that drop the blue Apple logo for a metallic, reflective finish. read more…
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After months of speculation, and hopes that an Apple store was landing in Monterrey (Mexico), photos show that it’s actually an authorized “Campus Store” at the university Tecnológico de Monterrey. The store has white-colored furniture to display a selection of computers and iPods. Check these photos of the new store. So far, Apple has not opened any company-owned stores in Mexico, Central or South America, instead preferring to bulk-up its reseller chain in those regions.
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Each March the city of Miami Beach (Fla.) holds a Winter Music Conference, with scores of groups playing a variety of sounds at venues across the city. Now a video has surfaced of last year’s performance of DJ Claude VonStroke inside the Lincoln Road retail store. Everything seems to be going well until two city code compliance officers show up in blue shirts to tell Claude the music too loud. His reaction–turn the volume up to max and walk away from the control board. The city’s noise ordinance provides a 15-minute “turn period,” so Claude wasn’t in jeopardy for a citation. Watch the video here.
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Just weeks from the grand opening, the future Boylston Street (Boston) retail store has turned green after construction scaffolding was removed this week. The plywood front of the site is apparently receiving an unmistakenable paint job to make it resemble the Green Monster at Fenway Park, the left-field wall at the home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. Painted on the wall is, “Opening Day. Coming Soon.” followed in scoreboard-type letters, “Apple Store, Boylston Street.”
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Apple’s retail stores continued to report strong revenues during the second quarter of fiscal 2008, and executives increased their forecast on the number of stores that will open this fiscal year. The company announced that store sales totaled $1.45 billion during the quarter, and profit was $334 million. Neither figure broke the records set in the previous quarter, which covered the holiday shopping season. However, the figures are the second-highest in the chain’s history, and represent substantial increases compared to the same quarter of 2007. The stores hosted 33.7 million visitors, the second-highest number in history behind the last holiday shopping season. CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the stores hosted 580,000 personal one-hour training sessions during the quarter. He also said the company was on-track to open about 45 stores during fiscal 2008, and “in the coming months” would open new international stores in Australia, China and Switzerland. Overall, Apple reported revenues of $7.51 billion for the quarter, down from the previous quarter, but a record for any previous second quarter, and up from the same quarter of 2007. Profit was $1.05 billion, up from $770 million in the same quarter of 2007. read more…
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Located in the middle of one of the most affluent suburbs in America, the Bethesda Row (Md.) store was among the nine mini-stores opened in late 2005 as a way of bringing Apple retail to more locations. But the small store concept never caught on–no others were ever built. Now, as Apple’s market share, revenues and store visitors continue to increase, the company has decided that the 15-foot wide Bethesda location desperately needs an expansion. The store in within an eight-block development owned by Federal Realty Investment Trust, intended to bring luxury apartments, offices, shops, restaurants and entertainment venues to the downtown area of this suburb of Washington (DC). So it was trivial for Apple to arrange a move directly across the street into the space now occupied by Blockbuster Video, which could provide over 10 times the square-footage as the current store. The store expansion would be among just a handful that have occurred over the years, and only the second store after Bay Street (N. Calif.) to have moved locations. read more…
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Investigators on the MacRumors Web forums have uncovered additional renderings of a possible future store in Toronto (Canada), but at a new location. One rendering shows the results of an extensive renovation of the existing building at 130 Bloor Street West, just up the street from the first reported location of a possible Apple store at 1 Bloor Street. This new find depicts an Apple logo on the ground-floor, center space, flanked by Gucci and lululemon athletica, an athletic apparel firm. The 14-story building has some heritage protections, and is undergoing structural upgrades to extend the building to 20-stories, upgrade utilities and reconfigure the ground-floor retail space. Such renderings often use speculative logos and graphics, and don’t indicate final tenants. [Note the comment that indicates the actual tenant is Hermes.]
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The Regent Street (London) store instantly became the chain’s busiest when it opened in November, 2004, requiring an expansion to 28,000 square-feet in Spring, 2006 to accommodate the crowds of visitors. Now insiders say the store is once again being modified to handle the crush, but in more subtle ways. First, the downstairs display tables are being replaced overnight with smaller versions, allowing six tables in the space of four, creating more access to produccts. The work includes taking up portions of the stone floor so electrical connections can be installed. Next, upstairs wall counters with shelving that formerly displayed speakers have been replaced with no-shelf versions that display computers and Cinema Displays. This change adds three more Mac Pro computers to the store’s display, for a total of five, and acknowledges more interest in desktops solutions . Thirdly, the popularity of ProCare and One to One training at the store will be alleviated somewhat with new furniture for the Creative and Studio bars that will allow more seating. Lastly, Apple hopes to smooth the flow of visitors with the addition of a Concierge table in front of the upstairs glass elevator, where staffers will assist with Genius Bar reservations and directions. [photos]
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