From the Washington Post article:
Last week, in a CompUSA store in San Jose, the heart of Apple country, the Apple section sported huge pictures of Albert Einstein and Muppets inventor Jim Henson, part of Apple's "Think Different" campaign. A stack of boxed iMacs sat 20 feet from a line of Windows-based PCs, some advertising prices much lower than the iMac's.
Paul and all,
I was in this CompUSA store Saturday morning, just after having been in the Concord/Walnut Creek store an hour or so earlier. I needed a USB A/B port for the iMac to Epson 740 hookup, and the Concord store was out of stock. I'd like to offer a comparison of the two stores.
In the Concord store, which has the ASWIAS prominently visible from the front entrance, there are at least three salesmen all of whom own Macs and are very positive about Apple. One of them told me proudly that his store had sold over 200 iMacs since it's debut, that iMac sales which had begun to decline are now picking up again, and that the sales of other Apple computer products were booming as well.
By constrast, the San Jose store's ASWIAS was not easily visible from the front, probably because the huge Apple signs were not hanging over it. I finally saw the B&W Think Different pictures which were not easy to pick out. When I went to the ASWIAS, I found a few aisles of Mac computers and products, but no really good differentiation between the Mac and Wintel platforms (the products just seemed to flow together).
When asked, a San Jose store employee had not the foggiest idea how many iMacs had been sold by the store. I got him to go to a computer where he found 37 sales. At first he said that was it, but when I laughed at him, he decided that it was either September sales or even the latest week. He just didn't care. He had gotten me the USB cable but warned me that most people have trouble getting the Epson 740's to work, and the Apple help techs were of no help to them (he had apparently heard one or more compliants about this). I told him that I had no trouble downloading the iMac 1.0 update or the Epson drivers, and that I had already gotten the printer to work on a different iMac. He replied that I was lucky.
I admit this CompUSA store is in the heart of Silicon Valley and that it would be natural for it to be deluged by savvy Wintel user. Nevertheless, I got the distinct impression its sales personnel didn't give a hoot about the Mac platform. This is in contrast to the Concord store where the Mac platform seemed very important.
I'd like to offer that the attitudes of CompUSA employees from store to store play a significant role in the perceptions of prospective buyers. I think that it is important for Apple management to stay cognizant of this and keep CompUSA and other mixed vendors on their toes. Just my 2 cents.
Also, the San Jose store employee does make a good point along the lines that Apple techs are very self-centered at times and unwilling to offer much help to people with other products like Epson printers. I think this is a mistake on Apple's part.
Sam |
