To start, there was the market share problem. While Apple made products that were well regarded and well built, they remained an also-ran in the indus

A-Players' Myth

submited by

Style Pass

2021-05-15 17:02:25

To start, there was the market share problem. While Apple made products that were well regarded and well built, they remained an also-ran in the industry, hovering around 3% of total PCs sold. Apple’s first forays into retail, partnering with CompUSA and Sears, were “massive failures”, according to marketing director Steve Chazin.

Apple was looking to change the game with branded retail outlets where they could control the entire customer experience. However, none of their competitors had ever achieved great success with that strategy; Gateway, now defunct but then famous for its piebald packaging, was the biggest success with $8 million in annual sales per store. David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp., was quoted in BusinessWeek as saying, “I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.”

The experts were very wrong. Apple went on to open 481 stores across the globe that bring in a million people a day. Apple Stores drive so much traffic to malls that the company is often able to negotiate discounted rent. In 2014, the average revenue per store was $50.4 million, which translates to more money per square foot than any other retailer, significantly ahead of longtime leader Tiffany & Co.