With that, Apple Store employees formed a receiving line to welcome the first wave of customers, high-fiving each as they filed past - eliciting cheers and "whoops!" as if they were greeting a high school football at the start of a homecoming game.īut the line shrank throughout the morning, disappearing shortly after 11:30 a.m.
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"Are you ready? Yeaahhhh!" he shouted again, shaking his upraised arms as the Mac fans roared wih him. He slipped into cheerleading mode: "Are you ready?" When store manager Bill Reinsmith appeared at the store's entrance, cheers and applause erupted. opening.īy kickoff time, more than 250 people were standing in line - a scene common to the opening of every Apple Store.
Some arrived well over an hour before the store's 10 a.m. Hundreds of them made the pilgrimage to Saturdays grand opening in Towson.
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According to Olivo, about 40 percent of an Apple Store's customers at any given time are either Windows users considering the switch or first-time buyers.Īs for the Mac faithful, having an Apple Store nearby is akin to enjoying your own slice of heaven.
"Weve got 5 down, 95 to go."Įach Apple Store is located in a major mall in a well-populated area to maximize availability to current customers as well as potential new ones.Īnd it seems to be working. "Our strategy is to gain market share," Olivo said, noting the commonly cited statistic of Apple having about 5 percent of the computer market. One of Apples reasons for a chain of retail outlets is to raise awareness of the platform among the multitudes who may have never used - much less seen - a Mac. And, finally, the stores help spread the Mac gospel.According to Olivo, the goal of an Apple Store is to offer "a unique retail experience." Yet Apple has forged ahead, convinced that the need for physical locations to showcase its products outweighs any negative factors.
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Clearly, Mac users don't need an Apple Store to buy Mac gear you can find it in catalogs, at outlets like CompUSA - and even from Apple's online store.Ĭritics also point to the example of struggling PC maker Gateway Inc., which started on its chain of 300-plus stores in 1996, but has closed about as many stores over the past 18 months as Apple has opened. Olivo said the company plans to have 50 by the end of the year.īut some may wonder why Apple is pushing a chain of retail stores. Saturday's opening of the Towson store marked the arrival of Apple's 41st retail outlet. "And hopefully, you'll buy one and take it home tonight." "We want this to be the best place to explore, learn about and try out the Mac experience," said Allen Olivo, Apple's senior director for retail. "I'm trying to catch up on some of this stuff."īailey said the only thing keeping him from buying a Mac was that he "wanted to be able to come back for support." He tried going to CompUSA Inc., which features a Macintosh section, but couldn't find anyone knowledgeable enough for his questions.Īpple, based in Cupertino, Calif., has designed its retail stores for customers like Bailey - with plenty of hardware to ogle, plenty of Mac-savvy salespeople to talk it up - the Towson store's staff totals about 20 - and plenty of support during and after the sale. "I like Photoshop, Illustrator, iMovie," he said. Tiring of the library's 10 cent-per-page fee for printouts and feeling a need to have a machine for more than word processing soon had Bailey thinking about a Mac. "Macs are a hell of a lot easier," he said. Until now, Bailey said he has been using the computers at the Parkville Public Library. He was working on a dual-processor QuickSilver G4 tower that was attached to one of Apple Computer Inc.'s 22-inch flat-screen Cinema Displays.īailey is the type of customer that Apple is trying to attract with its growing chain of stores: people who don't own a Mac but who want to learn more about them - and then buy one. "I came over to see what they had and to play with their computers," Bailey, who appeared to be in his 60s, said as he manipulated an image with Adobe Photoshop 7.
Stanley Bailey stopped by the new Apple Store in Towson Town Center last Saturday afternoon to investigate the possibility of buying a new Macintosh computer.
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