[hecatae]

http://gadgets.itwriting.com/?p=472


Met someone whose company has a number of high street stores selling Apple products.

“What do you do when an Apple Store opens in the same town as one of your shops?”

Answer: “It screws us”

That shop becomes instantly unprofitable.

found the above article on twitter, no idea which company this is but this did leave me wondering is the reason why all the operators heavily promote Android as when an Apple Store appears locally nobody buys an Apple product from the operator store any more?

[Hands0n]

I don't really know. I bought my iPad 2 from Three in Bluewater, less than 400M from the Apple store on the floor above it! Interesting thought though, and article. Perhaps the local stores cannot add value to the sale of the Apple product.

[gorilla]

The Apple store in Belfast (or enter your local store) is always jam packed with punters. I think it has to do with buying direct from Apple. If you had the choice between online retailer, Apple online, local merchant or Apple store where would you buy? Me, I always go to the store now. Just because when something goes wrong (it nearly always goes pop) I can take it back there and get it replaced.

[Ben]

It's definitely an uneasy relationship, no doubt about it.

The networks have the weapon of subsidy. Other stores selling Apple products are pretty much up the creek without a paddle as soon as an Apple Store opens, though.

[jokiin]

really only applies to those Apple specific retailers, we have them here as well, not many of them left though, years ago when Apple stores weren't around they were they only places that really knew anything about Apple products but not too many people were really using Apple products anyway, if they maintained their Apple centric business model and didn't evolve though then of course they'll suffer if an Apple store opens nearby