The typical design for an Apple Mini-Store. Wave goodbye! Photo: Apple
Posted on 02/13/2015 1:55:01 PM PST by Swordmaker
While many of us will be celebrating Valentine’s Day this Saturday, for Apple it represents the end of an era.
At 10pm today, Apple will close its existing Oakridge retail store in San Jose, California — with a new, larger one set to open Saturday morning at 10am. In the process, Apple will have marked the end of its mini-store experiment, with the Oakridge venue being the last of its kind.
First launched in 2004, Apple’s mini-stores were an effort to quickly roll out new Apple Stores to keep up with demand at a time when the company was unable to find enough of the larger sites it was looking for. Nine mini-stores were opened in all — ranging in size from 2,000-square-feet down to a tiny 500-square foot.
“By 2004, Apple’s retail stores had expanded to the point where it could no longer find 3,000-square foot stores in the kinds of places they were trying to establish them,” says Gary Allen, Apple Store enthusiast and founder of ifoAppleStore. “So instead of going bigger, [Apple] decided to focus on mini-stores — helped by the realisation that, even with less space, they could sell close to the same amount of merchandise.”
Perhaps the most interesting part of the mini-stores was their design — managing to be compact, but without losing what it was that made the larger stores so characterful.
“Our mini store is a big experience that fits in a small space,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s then-senior VP of Retail, at the time. “The mini store’s small size will allow us to place stores in a variety of interesting new locations, while retaining innovations like the Genius Bar that have made Apple’s retail stores such a hit.”
Before being installed, the mini-stores were prototyped in a top-secret warehouse in Cupertino.
Steve Jobs based the concept of the mini-stores on a Mini Cooper car: smaller, but still luxurious. For many companies, tiny kiosk stores that were never intended to be flagships would have been an excuse to slack off. Instead, under the exacting guidance of Jobs, Apple’s Mini-Stores represent a perfect time capsule of the company’s approach to industrial design, circa 2004.
The walls were formed from milled, bead-blasted stainless steel panels shipped from Japan, alongside wooden benches and tabletops. Originally the plan was to have carpet on the floors, but Jobs didn’t like the color that was picked out for one early outlet, and had it torn up at great expense and replaced with a shiny epoxy-finish. Before being installed, the mini-stores were prototyped in a top-secret warehouse in Cupertino.
The mini-stores were a great success, and Apple briefly considered trying to make them a fixture at airports. However, they quickly became unwieldy as Apple transitioned into the giant that it is today — resulting in too many customers for the diminutive size of each venue.
“It was a great idea for its time, but it didn’t take too long before the mini-stores just became impractical,” says Allen. “As Apple became more and more popular, you literally had people queuing out of the door on a regular shopping day.”
Ultimately, the mini-stores are a great glimpse at an Apple midway between the struggling company that haemorrhaged $740 million in a single quarter in 1996, and the giant with a bigger market cap than Intel and Microsoft combined in 2011. We may no longer have Apple mini-stores here in 2015, but they’re stores we can look back on very fondly.
And who knows? With Apple demand growing exponentially in markets like China and India, they may not be gone forever.
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In fact, Apple stores have the highest per-square-foot revenue in all of retail. The only other retailer that comes close is Murphy USA, which is a chain of tiny gas-station convenience stores that are crammed with high-priced snack items, tobacco, beer and wine.
Having had occasion to need help with an Apple product and visiting one of their stores to receive advice from one of the “geniuses” (I am not making up that term ... it’s what the company calls them) I’d be pleased to see every one of those places shuttered and the incompetent yet arrogant asshats who work in them out on the street.
I doubt they even get close. Apple's $ per square foot per store average Revenue is over $8000. Tiffany Jewelers on 5th Avenue is second at a bit over $4000 per square foot.
When I go to the “mall” (about 2x per year) the Apple store always looks like they’re giving away free beer and the Microsoft store looks like the loneliest place on earth.
Apple has the highest customer service rating in the consumer electronics industry. I took a client to one of the Genius Bars three years ago with a problem with a MacBook Pro that was two years out of warranty. They could not repair it. When they informed her it was not repairable, she was starting to talk to me about buying a new one when the Genius interrupted her to tell her they had decided to REPLACE it instead. They were transferring her data from her old hard drive. A half hour later they brought out a BRAND NEW MacBook Pro and gave it to her. . . with all of her files intact. No Charge.
THAT is customer service. THAT is why Apple has a 98% customer service satisfaction rating.
Why were you not satisfied with your service visit?
My provider, Verizon, allowed me to switch upgrade dates with my daughter and I replaced the phone within a month. But besides being no help I left the store fuming over the smarmy and aloof attitude that everyone I dealt with in the Apple store seemed to exude. The service in any specific store in a chain of them is dependent on the specific manager, so I do not discount the excellent service your friend enjoyed. But count me in with the two percent whose experience with Apple's customer service was less than satisfactory.
The Mac store has been a very good Partner for me...as well..
a Mac Pro also out of warranty....they checked it out and gave it a 100 percent pass
Thanks
Hmmmm. Well your contract was with Verizon. . . and Apple could not do anything about that. It was nice of Verizon to allow you to switch contract dates. I've done that with AT&T. . . but they are getting much more restrictive on that.
And you are right. The attitude of store managers percolates down through staff. You were not treated right. Your timing, since you had a 4s would have been about when Apple had hired a guy named Browett (?) out of a British chain store line, to head Apple's Retail stores. . . he lasted just about six months before he was summarily canned. His attitude toward customers which he told people to use was about what you experienced. That's what got him canned. He was cutting staff and telling them that saving money and the bottom line at the Genius bar was far more important than customer satisfaction! Cook called him in and he was GONE! One of the shortest tenures in a high position at Apple. He just did not get what Apple was all about. . . which is pleasing their customers.
Your example of top level customer service was impressive. I had a good example of this as well from Texas Instruments back in the day. I was in college and really laid out big bucks for a high end scientific calculator. It fell out of the car seat into a snow covered parking lot then I topped it off by backing over it. I gathered up the several pieces, mailed to TI and asked if they could fix it. A couple of weeks later a new calculator showed up in the mail.
I’ve used the Genius Bar for a number of repairs. They always do the job efficiently, friendly, and at fair price. Their appointment system is the best - go online, enter your Apple ID, and arrive on time for immediate service. Mobile payments are a breeze and the receipt is delivered to mail on your phone in seconds. Plus they have accurate info about all your purchases.
Do you just like to bitch about everything?
Well did they wax your car,brush your dog, and clean the toilets at home?
;-)
Wow, I hadn’t heard that. For any job at Apple, the battery of interviews is long and very intense. How’d that guy slip past the hiring process?
Unfortunately for me, they sent over the Brit Browett and he waxed the dog, clogged the toilet, and used a steel bristle brush on the car. I drew the line when he was turning his attentions toward my wife. I still give him an “A” for effort, though.
Nicely done!
Liked yours, too. Good chuckle. Thanks.
He was Tim Cook's first hire as CEO after Steve Jobs' death. It was a mistake. He'd made a huge turn around at a British chain, but after a few months it became obvious his methods were not Apple's. It also seemed under later reporting that the success in Britain was more the work of an assistant.
I think you are making that up just to be contrary. Apple has the best rated customer service in the industry by far and it is very difficult to get a job there if you do not know what you are doing.
I have had the numerous interactions with Apple Customer Service, and they have always worked out as "now I know why I buy Apple products."
Walk in with a phone that does not work, and walk out with a refurb -- no charge. Walk in with a laptop I spilled lots of coffee with cream into the keyboard, and the genius takes it upstairs for "inspection". I am thinking this is going to cost at least a grand and take a week or two. A few minutes later he comes back with a new keyboard installed and everything is OK. I ask what the cost is and he gives me a wink and a nod, and says: "Be more careful with dairy products..."
I have never had anything less than wonderful service from Apple.
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