“Inside Apple Stores, A Certain Aura Enchants The Faithful”

“Inside Apple Stores, a Certain Aura Enchants the Faithful”

Apple Inc., an American multinational corporation designing consumer electronics and closely related software products, is popular for its well known products and its mass power in the market. In a New York Times article under the title of “Inside Apple Stores, a Certain Aura Enchants the Faithful”, the author Katie Hefner discusses and analyzes how the Apple Company uses unique methods in its physical stores around the world to attract more customers as well as tourists, which originates 20% of the companies overall revenue. Such methods include giving customers the ability to click on iPod playlists, surf the internet using MacBooks, and touch-padding iPhones.

In addition to these perks, Apple stores serve the purpose of a gathering place for people with bright lights that create “a buzz that makes customers feel more like they are at an event than a retail store”.

I believe that having unique and distinctive settings and services offered in the store differentiates Apple stores from other competing ones. Additionally, consumer behavior is dramatically affected by the way this company has designed its stores and filled them with friendly sales staff that pays close attention to customers. I also think that Apple’s goal of constructing its stores in this way makes customers feel welcome and attracts mass amounts of people to their stores in turn encouraging them to come and try the variety of Apple products that are available. Although a lot of people who visit the store might just be trying the products and loitering around with iPhones and iPods, it still encourages purchasing.

Another factor in this article that caught my attention was the fact that Apple Incorporation’s way of setting up their stores to market and sell their products has a gigantic effect on consumer behavior. Apple is not the only company around the world selling personal electronics, yet it is the only company who has created stores filled with services that affect the buying experience of its customers in this way. In other words, when people, although they might not be intending to buy any products, enter the Apple store and engross themselves in the products available, their experience and intentions may change in seconds and end up buying a product they liked.

In addition to all these factors, I personally think that Apple Inc. is targeting teenagers and therefore they designed their stores in this unique fashion as a reaction to what they believed the customers