store-within-a-store
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HTC opens store-within-a-store in Germany, hopes it's your One-stop shop
Electronics giants who want to compete for retail attention but can't always justify a full presence have a common trick: open a mini store. Apple did it, Microsoft did it, and Samsung virtually based the Galaxy S III launch on it. HTC is next at bat. While it has its own stores in Asia and parts of Europe, the smartphone designer is trying out a store-within-a-store at the giant Saturn-Markt shop in Hamburg, Germany. Swing by and you can buy or test a device like the One X+ or Windows Phone 8X alongside accessories -- including Beats headphones, naturally -- with dedicated staff to help. HTC didn't immediately have details of larger plans when we reached out, but there's talk at MyDrivers of further such stores as well as seminars that would help make sense out of Sense. There's no guarantee that HTC will benefit from carving out its own retail space in what's often considered hostile territory; even so, the move can't hurt when the company is fighting for relevancy.
Photos of Apple's store-within-a-store at Walmart
ifoAppleStore has pictures from a Lowell, Arkansas Walmart that shows an Apple store-within-a-store like those seen in Best Buy. The display at the Walmart location focuses on mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. With its large backlit-signs, wood tables and live demo units, the new in-store display improves Walmart's previous efforts which were drab and not very well maintained. ifoAppleStore says these displays may be a prototype of a rumored expansion of the store-within-a-store concept to Sam's Club, a retail warehouse chain owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
History of the Apple Store
Just in time for the iPhone crowds and media to descend on Apple stores around the country, SiliconUser has a quick little history of how Apple's famous retail space came to be. It all started back in 19-aught-7, when Mr. Stevonious Jobsenheimer first opened the Apple Computing Salon and General Store in little Border Junction, Wyoming...No, only kidding. In 1996 when Jobs came back to Apple, they were struggling to come up with a good way to sell their computers at retail, and after a few bumpy years with store-within-a-stores at CompUSA, they set up a warehouse in Cupertino and went to work designing a real live Apple experience. The first try was apparently based on Apple's product matrix (and caused Jobs to famously say, "Oh God, we're screwed"), but eventually they came up with what we know today-- bright, open spaces with stations that encouraged visitors to use and play with the products. Strangely enough, SiliconUser points out that they are very much like Gap stores, which both disturbs and awes me at the same time.So when you're standing outside your local Apple store Thursday at midnight while it rains and you stare at the growing-even-more- obsolete- than-it-already-is Treo 650 only to look up at the dry and warm Apple store and the glorious iPhones that lie inside behind the glass, just remember the good folks that designed it all for you. The money they were paid made it worth it, but the irresistible spending draw you feel while walking by is just the icing on the cake.
