Apple serves over 1 billion worldwide thru its iconic stores

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 26 May 2011 14:11

Your IT - Home IT

From new iPad 2 driven smart signs, to a new 'Personal Setup' bench in Apple's retail stores, the king of the crunchy kingdom is taking its already market-leading Apple Stores and making them even better, putting competitors - and much of the rest of the computing world - to shame.

It's good to be the king, whether or not you're Duke Nukem, and while the Duke likes big explosions, Apple loves its big stores, big product launches, massive queues for new product launches and being the biggest and best on customer service, both pre and post the sales process.

USA Today published an article earlier this week which covered the fact that all of Apple's flagship stores have not only been outfitted with new iPad 2 driven 'smart signs', but that Apple is also creating a new 'Personal Setup' bench that will help end-users more easily set up iPads, iPhones and other Apple devices in store.

Apple's Smart Signs are supposed to feature information on all the stock that Apple Stores carry, in some detail along with pricing, and is even able to let customers notify an Apple Store employee that they need assistance in having questions answered or to make a purchase decision.

It's a very clever way to not only use but also to showcase the iPad 2's flexibility - in this case as a retail sales and customer exploration tool - giving the iPad 2 yet another ultra-flexible business string to its bow.

The 'Personal Setup' bench is also a fascinating extension of Apple's 'Genius Bar' concept, but this time on an even more personal basis, helping with the setup of iDevices, setting up email accounts and helping with other personalisation issues.

These developments show that Apple thinks not merely of pure profit, but of the people who deliver that profit most handsomely to Apple: its customers.

Sure, Apple is sometimes quite rightly accused of doing what it wants to do, and what it thinks customers should have, rather than what customers say they want, rather nicely disproving the claim that 'the customer is always right'.

After all, if that were true, Apple would be out of business - instead of being the technology world's shining star and diamond in the sky.

Continued on page two, please read on!