I've seen two of the "Apple Shops" up here in New England. Reminded me totally of when Sears was selling Macs. Everything in disarray, 2 machines shut off, one in beachball mode, all of them dusty. The iMacs were still the white ones (although it only a week after announcement of the fancy new ones). I just shook my head, and walked away.

Gee Vern , I am really likin your posts. Maybe CompUSA could also adopt this module. They really seemsd to have tried and this would really help them to get it right.

The Best Buy near me is about two miles from the Apple Store. I observed a "sales presentation" and was fairly impressed. At no point did the sales associate make any claims or state any facts which were erroneous, something I could not say about the CompUSA folks. I wonder how well the concept will work when Best Buy is in close proximity to a Apple store. If the other stores are as well done as the one by me, they should help boost Apple's sales, a good thing.

As long as the clerks attending to the Apple "bars" have a strong background in Apple products (in a sense, that they're "Macheads" or "Mac fanboys"), I can't see where the arrangement will hurt. However, if those assigned to this section are merely "filling-in," and if they know as little as most of Best Buy's clerks do about anything in particular, it'll be a cock-up of the first order, especially when it comes to converting the PC crowd ---Best Buy's mainstay customer base--- to the world of Mac.

I live in the far north side of Chicago. There is a bus route in my neighborhood which passes two Best Buys and terminates at a shopping center which has an Apple Store [Old Orchard in Skokie]. Indeed, there is a Best Buy across the street from the Old Orchard shopping center. I won't expect to find an Apple Shop in that one.

If you are a Best Buy Reward Zone member (free membership) you get coupons mailed once in a while. Apple products are not excluded. I bought an Airport Extreme Base Station using a 12% discount coupon. Thats 21 bucks off!

On top of that, you can return peripherals within 30 days with no restocking fee!

You don't get those at the Apple Store.

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Does Best Buy mark products below Apple's list price?

I've just had too many bad experiences there, in terms of customer service in particular, to justify giving them money. Glad to see Apple navigating another major retail beachhead, but I'll just leave them to it, its worth the extra hour to just go the the Apple Store for me.

Not all Best Buys have them. The one in Hyannis MA which is sorely missing an Apple Store at its main mall could easily use an Apple presence at Best Buy. They do say they have their products online though. And the one in Laurel Maryland had a manager who made such a fuss over me having a Mac that I will never go back. That was 6 years ago. If Best Buy really wants their Apple presence known, their inserts in the Sunday paper should show them. Also the Rockville Maryland location did a bait and switch tactic on a dishwasher with me. The first thing Best Buy needs to learn is to respect their customer, and make these distributions chain wide.

Theyve had an apple store for years in compusa but as a company they cant pull off anything and cant compete...closing half their stores come on now..

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Anonymous wrote:
Theyve had an apple store for years in compusa but as a company they cant pull off anything and cant compete...closing half their stores come on now..

The Apple "store within a store" at CompUSA.... also known as the ladder storage area. CompUSA never did justice to the concept of a "store within a store."