Apple’s profit per square foot beats Best Buy and Tiffany&Co

Posted December 31, 2006 at 08:46 PM by Darrick Rochili

Section: News, Apple

If you step into an Apple store in a shopping mall, chances are you’ll see an area with demos of the different iPod versions, MacBooks, as well as Macs. Then there’ll be Apple software, accessories and peripherals on the other side of the store. That’s quite typical for a PC retail store, right? But reports say that Apple stores rake in more profits per square foot compared to big retailers like Best Buy and even beat luxury retailer Tiffany & Co.

So what are the differences between an Apple store and any other retailer? Probably many, as reported in this article by Red Herring, but based on personal observation, I’d say it is about location, product specialty and product placement.

Best Buy and Tiffany & Co. are perfect retailers to compare Apple against. In Best Buy, products are somewhat cramped together and they’re not specialized. People come in to buy a variety of products at Best Buy, not just a specific brand/product. In an Apple store, products are displayed welcomingly with lots of space for people to move and play around with products.

Although products are well placed and quite specialized at Tiffany & Co., they are a high end retailer and not located in places where everybody just drops in and feels welcome. Compare that to Apple who, even though they offer considerably high end products, have locations in places that even an average Joe wouldn’t mind dropping by and can still feel welcome.

Not to say that people wouldn’t feel welcome at a Best Buy or Tiffany & Co. but someone could get overwhelmed with the amount of products at Best Buy, while others could feel unwelcome in high end luxury retailers like Tiffany & Co. Apple just does a better job of making their retail stores inviting and welcoming - IMHO.

Read [MacNN] Read [RedHerring]