Gregg Thurman - 22 February 2009 04:12 PM

dmiller - 22 February 2009 03:50 PM

Ok, now a 24” iMac with a couple of printers just walked out the door.

And then another 13” Macbook followed.

This is fun. If I just sit here for a couple of hours and count up the purchases being made, I’ll feel much better about the Apple economy when I leave.

No intent to dampen your efforts, but you must remember that Danbury Connecticut is one of the more affluent areas of the US.  As much as I would like it to be so, Danbury isn’t representative of the overall market.

Yes, I know…:-)

But it still “is” what it is. People are buying, and these are people like: a mother and her high school aged daughter; a father and son; another mother and daughter. No fancy clothes, just ordinary-looking people.

Another iMac, this one a 20”, just walked out the door.

The huge Williams Sonoma store, a stone’s throw away, is nearly empty.

Last post for the afternoon.

-Another- 24” iMac just walked out the door (happy with 3 young kids and a grandmother as well..

So in the time I’ve been hanging around, that’s 3 13” Macbooks, 2 24” iMacs, and one 20” iMac.

Good ol’ Danbury. 

The site where the mall sits used to be the Danbury Fair Grounds. The grounds had a small race car track in the pre-mall days that was used for a location shoot in the Movie Arthur and a scene with Dudley Moore and the late Sir John Gielgud.

I’m well familiar with the place. While Danbury might be considered an affluent city, the towns to its south such as Ridgefield, Wilton and New Canaan are far more affluent. I believe the location for the Apple Store in Danbury has as much to do with convergence of I-84 and Route 7 at the mall’s chosen spot as it has to do with the demographics of the city. Moving north from Danbury one reaches the last of the northern bedroom communities serving New York City.

Due to easy freeway access, the Danbury Mall location will pull traffic from less affluent areas to the north as well as some of the more affluent communities to the south.

I don’t consider Danbury necessarily more affluent than many of the other high-traffic mall spots chosen for Apple retail store locations.

I’d see the Danbury store as representative of Apple retail stores located in other suburban locations on the periphery of major metropolitan areas. New York City media (TV, radio, etc.) serve the Danbury market though it would take about an hour or more to reach Manhattan by car from Danbury in moderate freeway traffic.

The store at International Mall near the Tampa airport yesterday afternoon was a happy place, but not busy by Apple Store standards - maybe 25-30 customers total and a ten of those were attending an iPhoto tutorial. 

But the rest of this very upscale mall was nearly empty.  Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Gucci, etc. need not have opened their doors.  The Sony Style Store which is comparable in size to the Apple Store had maybe 3-4 customers, and none of them looking at big ticket items.

Munich/Germany, first German Apple store.

My SO was strongly considering buying a MacBook as the old PowerBook was falling apart after so many years.

The store is in central munich at a large pedestrian area called “Marienplatz” with lots of shop. Beside being the main shopping area, it’s also a tourist magnet.

When when walked by the store the first time around 1pm it was packed. So it was ~2pm. Once we finished our “regular” shopping we got to the Apple store at about 3:30 pm. It was still packed.

Compared to when the store opened the first time back in December 2008 it was only slightly less busy. A specialist mentioned that it’s like that on a regular basis. In fact, the last 2 days were like grand openings she said.
Everything from MB/MBP’s to iMacs, iPhones and iPods got attention by visitors. I couldn’t count the numbers of purchases while my SO had a closer look at the MacBook, but there were quiet a few. I also saw and heard potential switches talking to Concierges and Specialists. The Stores employees did a good job on explaining things, answering questions. Without the store there would probably be less switchers in/around Munich. Too bad it took that long for Apple to open a Store here.

We had to wait to be checked out. Within 15 minutes I saw 1 MacBook Pro 17”, 3 MacBooks, 3 Minis and one iMac 24” being sold around us.

-bb

b-bird - 08 March 2009 04:21 AM

Munich/Germany, first German Apple store.

My SO was strongly considering buying a MacBook as the old PowerBook was falling apart after so many years.

The store is in central munich at a large pedestrian area called “Marienplatz” with lots of shop. Beside being the main shopping area, it’s also a tourist magnet.

When when walked by the store the first time around 1pm it was packed. So it was ~2pm. Once we finished our “regular” shopping we got to the Apple store at about 3:30 pm. It was still packed.

Compared to when the store opened the first time back in December 2008 it was only slightly less busy. A specialist mentioned that it’s like that on a regular basis. In fact, the last 2 days were like grand openings she said.
Everything from MB/MBP’s to iMacs, iPhones and iPods got attention by visitors. I couldn’t count the numbers of purchases while my SO had a closer look at the MacBook, but there were quiet a few. I also saw and heard potential switches talking to Concierges and Specialists. The Stores employees did a good job on explaining things, answering questions. Without the store there would probably be less switchers in/around Munich. Too bad it took that long for Apple to open a Store here.

We had to wait to be checked out. Within 15 minutes I saw 1 MacBook Pro 17”, 3 MacBooks, 3 Minis and one iMac 24” being sold around us.

-bb

Good stuff.  Thanks for the report.

The sponge is at the VC Apple Store for the first time in about 7 months. The store is relatively busy.  Most people are waiting to be helped with service or taking a class.  The store is about half full.  It is much busier then I usually see it.  I typing this on the new keyboard for the iMac and I don’t like it at all.  It is much too compact for me.

The sponge is at the Apple Store in the Irvine Spectrum.  The store is about 25% full, and most those folks are at the genius bar or in sessions.  The mall is not very busy. This is a huge mall on the outskirts of Orange County in Southern California.

Do any of you ever walk into Apple Stores?

I still don’t own aapl.

I walked into one today. Mid afternoon, to see the Genius.

The store was about 50% of normal load, but considering that the time of day, I’d say it was quite busy. The mall was relatively empty.

Dropped in Valley Fair AppleStore last Saturday to see Genius before the store is open.  When store is open for about half an hour, I counted a ratio of more than 2.5 customers to 1 Apple employee.

I was at the Apple store at Walt Whitman mall on Long Island, NY a couple weeks ago, middle of the day on a Friday before Memorial Day weekend. This is one of the small boutique stores with the genius bar on one side instead of the back. Was shopping for a nano armband/case. Every laptop machine and iMac had somebody at it. About half the iPods on display were in use. The Apple TV on display was getting no use. There was only one Mac Mini (lowest specs) and one Mac Pro (also lowest specs) on display, both were empty, which was good for me because I was benchmarking those two against my Blackbook to see if the new system architecture made up for the slower processor on the mini (it doesn’t), and the relative speed increase for a rendering project on the Mac Pro (SIGNIFICANT).  After making my selection I had to stand around waiting to catch the eye of one of the sales people. They seemed to be doing a shift change while dealing with the normal chaos of an Apple store: Genius requests, people with switcher problems, kids checking out the bling, increasingly grey-haired shoppers (me) trying to check out. Apple Retail is alive and well.

At Grand Rapids, Mich for a meeting.  Mid afternoon at the Briarwood Mall.  Not much traffic in the mall.

Apple store is one of the small ones.  Moderately busy.  Every area of the store had activity.  Genius Bar was busiest.  A colleague commented that the rest of the stores would love to have half the action Apple was getting.

I was at the Florida brandon mall store last Friday and they were not very busy. Maybe a dozen people in the store. The entire mall was quiet.
I then went to the Tampa International mall store a couple hours later and they were fairly busy. Maybe thirty people and there was a short line at the register. Overall, the mall was busy for a Friday afternoon.
On another note, I signed up for a Iweb workshop at the Brandon store for a June 29 class. I just received an email that the class is cancelled. I’m thinking, are they getting ready for a special event, like a new Iphone the next day? Are other stores canceling classes on that day?

capablanca - 02 June 2009 10:51 PM

At Grand Rapids, Mich for a meeting.  Mid afternoon at the Briarwood Mall.  Not much traffic in the mall.

Apple store is one of the small ones.  Moderately busy.  Every area of the store had activity.  Genius Bar was busiest.  A colleague commented that the rest of the stores would love to have half the action Apple was getting.

Minor correction, that would be the Woodland Mall. Do you live in the area? I’m just north of Kalamazoo, about 45 minutes from the mall.

CaptainBoom - 04 June 2009 10:19 PM

capablanca - 02 June 2009 10:51 PM

At Grand Rapids, Mich for a meeting.  Mid afternoon at the Briarwood Mall.  Not much traffic in the mall.

Apple store is one of the small ones.  Moderately busy.  Every area of the store had activity.  Genius Bar was busiest.  A colleague commented that the rest of the stores would love to have half the action Apple was getting.

Minor correction, that would be the Woodland Mall. Do you live in the area? I’m just north of Kalamazoo, about 45 minutes from the mall.

Thanks for the correction.

I live in Florida, but spend a lot of time in Michigan, Wyoming, and Montana in the summer months.  Speaking of Kalamazoo, Apple has a presence there in Best Buy.  When I checked it out, the Apple employee there was extremely capable and professional.  My previous experiences with BB stores in Florida was what I would call ordinary, so I was happy to see this.