Apple’s new store in central Sydney is certainly impressive. Ron Johnston’s opening speech mentioned how it’s their second biggest store after London and has the largest plate glass windows in the world.
The plate glass windows are the key to how this store works. It showcases Apple’s products beautifully and invites passers by to step inside and play with system.
That openness extends to the fact you can play with the systems. One of the things that’s always frustrated me with computer stores is that they don’t display what the systems are capable of. The Apple store does.
Also notable is the stock display; there’s no stack ’em high clutter that’s typical of many computer stores. The stock is laid out beautifully and takes advantage of the space.
The attention to detail is reflected in the staff as well. They are friendly, trained and knowledgeable. Again this differs from most computer stores where the staff are commission driven part timers.
All of this gives the store an atmosphere of restrained competence. These products that don’t need a hard sell.
On the top floor is one of Apple’s masterstrokes: The Genius bar. It was mentioned that this is the biggest Genius Bar of any Apple store but I’m not sure about this. Once again, the geniuses were well trained and presented.
One impression I did have was this area was a bit spartan and I expect there’ll be more facilities like couches, water dispensers and possibly even a coffee vendor in this area for people waiting for their turn with trainers or geniuses. It could easily become a focal point for Mac fans to gather and simply talk Mac stuff.
Overall, the Apple Store is a very well thought out and set up operation, as it should be given Apple’s attention to detail and the fact this is the 215th Apple store.
It’s a great flagship for Apple’s Australian operations and is going to be very interesting to see the role the store plays in the iPhone release next month.