apple target holidays
9 months ago
Published October 20, 2021 by

Look who’s gearing up for the Apple Christmas crunch

From Logan Moore’s “Target Is More Than Doubling Apple Shops Within Its Stores in Time for the Holidays” posted Tuesday by Barron’s:

Target (TGT) said Tuesday that it will more than double the number of Apple (AAPL) shop-in-shops in its stores to 36 from 17, just in time for holiday shopping as consumer demand ramps up.

Target’s tech consultants will be trained by Apple, and iPhones and other devices will be available.

The new in-store Apple shops will be in Orlando, Miami, and nine stores in Texas.

My take: “Trained by Apple” makes a big difference. But then again, Apple training ain’t what it used to be, especially around the holidays.

7 Comments

  1. Fred Stein said:
    Trained by Apple has longer term value for Apple and for us investors.

    In the future, these workers may work for Apple, mobile carriers, corporate IT, or IT services providers like IBM and Cisco, or just become the Apple expert among family and friends. In all cases, they help increase switchers from PCs and Android.

    And of course, nearly no one switches back to the inferior products.

    3
    October 20, 2021
  2. Robert Paul Leitao said:
    According to Target’s corporate web site, the company has 1,915 stores in the US. I consider 36 “shop-in-shops” to be a pilot project. Why not? It puts Apple products in the 36 stores in easy reach of Target customers and it may prompt Apple customers (the best of the best for retailers) to visit their local Target more frequently.

    0
    October 20, 2021
    • Gregg Thurman said:
      My daughter loves target, says she, “the product quality is better and the price is reasonable”.

      If a quarter of Target’s are upgraded to “Store within a store” Apple fronts, the number of Apple retail outlets in the US just increased by about 500.

      But where will they go? My first thought is locales too small to support an Apple Store. My second thought is as a secondary outlet in more densely populated areas not yet ready for a second Apple Store.

      As an example would be Coeur d’Alene ID and Spokane WA. Separated by 30 miles of I-90, Coeur d’Alene isn’t near big enough to support an Apple Store, but the Target store does very well. To offset its diminutive market size Coeur d’Alene is one of the nations wealthiest communities and has 3 colleges/universities within its city limits. During the summer months it’s population swells by 2X.

      1
      October 20, 2021
      • Jerry Doyle said:
        @Gregg Thurman: I agree with you on the need and importance of Apple store expansion into geographic areas where no Apple Stores exist. The nearest Apple store to me is 100 miles.

        These Apple shops-in-shops (or stores-in-shops) never will fulfill the lively experience of shopping in an Apple store, but they do give consumers access to Apple’s products and opportunities for technical assistance and advice. More important, as brother Fred S denoted, these Apple shops-in-shops give consumers who are owners of Android devices and PCs opportunities to become familiar and knowledgeable about Apple products leading to the possibility of their becoming owners of Apple devices.

        1
        October 20, 2021
  3. Jerry Doyle said:
    Apple devices are extremely intuitive to the extent that one often can resolve whatever problem one confronts while using them. I usually seek Apple Support once or perhaps twice annually. Ironically, I contacted Apple Support yesterday morning to resolve an issue. I give the wait time for a representative as “excellent.” They are on the line quickly. I give them good to excellent rating in their command of the English language, enunciation and listening to the problem presented. I am disappointed in that often the initial representative knows less about the device than I and he (or she) has to elevate me to a Senior representative. The knowledge & skill at the Senior Advisor level is better, as it should be, but even here it can be laborious as we both work on the problem together instead of the Senior Advisor having the answer at hand.

    In summary, I agree with brother Fred S. It is important that the trained Apple advisors stationed at these “shop-in-shops” are better trained, hopefully at the Senior Advisor levels. It will have longer term value for Apple and for Apple investors.

    0
    October 20, 2021
    • David Emery said:
      “Apple devices are extremely intuitive to the extent that one often can resolve whatever problem one confronts while using them. ”

      Yeah, but when the solution is not obvious, Apple devices are notoriously opaque in providing debugging information. I’m particularly annoyed when I see an error number with no way to look up what that number means. Of course, we’d like to not have problems in the first place, but making it easier to diagnose problems without spending time with Tier 1 Support to get to Tier 2 Support would be a big help. I’ll call Apple for help maybe once every other year, but when I do, it usually takes Tier 2 and often several sessions to figure out what’s going on and how to fix it. But I do want to give Apple full credit, the Tier 2 people have been great and are clearly dedicated to fixing the problem, and not just getting me off the phone!

      0
      October 21, 2021
  4. John Konopka said:
    I would think that for Target training is not as intense as it would be for an Apple store. There will not be a genius staff to fix problems. These people need to know the product line and options well enough to guide people who know very little about Apple products.

    1
    October 20, 2021

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