I will be discussing my experience I had at the Apple store. I went to the Apple store located at 103 Prince Street, SoHo New York.
FUN FACT! There are 486 Apple retail altogether stores in 19 countries. In New York there are about 21 Apple stores.
I chose this location because the structure is quite unique. The building use to be occupied by the United States Post office. On the top of the building, the words, "United-States-Post-Office", still remains engraved.
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| Apple store in SoHo
The first thing I noticed when I walked into this store was the staircase inside, which was leading up to the second floor. This staircase was custom made in Germany with thick heavy glass panels. It looked stunning and amazing! With sleek modern design from floor to the ceiling, the store looked very clean and organized. It definitely was very attractive, which was a way customers could shop at ease and also take amazing photographs.
In my perspective, I did not feel like I was inside a store, but rather it felt like an art gallery museum displaying Apple products. It was interesting to see that the design of the store looked similar to the design of Apple products.
Since this is an Apple store, it obviously sells everything is Apple. They had items such as: Apple watches, Macbooks, iMacs, iPad's and the famous iPhone. Recently, Apple came out with the iPhone 7 on September, which, currently, is doing tremendously well in sales. I saw this when I went this past week to pick up my dads iPhone 7.
Like any ordinary customer, I was greeted by the sales associates right away. There were approximately 50 employees working that were wearing grey solid t-shirts with the apple logo on it. All of the employees were assisting customers inside. I had an associate approach and ask me if i needed assistance. I replied "I will need assistance but in a few minutes time because I would like to explore around."
I went upstairs to test out the iPhone 7 Plus and I began to realize that all of Apple's products are on display, which means customers have free ability to play and test around with them. I also got to feel the weight of the phone, look at the different colours and look at the new features openly. This is a benefit to customers because they get to experience, in real life, how the iPhone is. On top of that, the employees are very knowledgeable and very professional. I over heard a customer being emotional because her Mac was giving her problems. She was trying to outdo the sales associate but the associate was very calm and handed the situation very professionally. The sales associate resolved the issue and gave her a tutorial on how to retrieve her files from her iCloud account.
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| This is me holding the iPhone 7 Plus (display) in matte black. |
There is a section at the back of the store called the "genius bar". This is where employees can teach you how to use your Apple product if you are a first time buyer. This is another tactic Apple establishes in order to create a close and long-term customer relationship.
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| Outside the SoHo Apple Store |
My overall experience at an Apple retail store was great. I have had a positive time there. I spent about 35 minutes at the store and walked out the store satisfied with my purchase. While I was there, I applied the methods of the decision-making process (from the previous blog), which definitely helped me out. I witnessed good, ethical behaviours from the employees and professionalism handling certain customers. This experience showed me how to apply the principles of what we learn in class (marketing 101) and gave me an idea of how it feels like to be in a consumer's standpoint and retailer's standpoint.
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Stunning glass stairs going up to the second floor. |
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