Gateway closing all its retail stores
 

Hmmm sad for all the employees but ...

any deals?

We had at least one store here in Vancouver...now you see it, now you don't. I was going to order a Gateway awhile back. When I got the saleswomen, she said: "Ohhh, you're from Canada..., we don't like selling to Canada." Then I hung up.

Meanwhile, over at Apple...
 

I think Dell has it all figured out.

John,
I would agree with you about Dell. They started with mail order (although they have or had at least one factory outlet in Austin, Texas, I believe) and stayed mail order. It appears that some of these companies that start out mail order and do well then think that they could translate that success into brick-and-mortar stores and continue to do as well. Two examples that come to mind are: Eddie Bauer, and The Company Store (goose down pillows, comforters, jackets, etc).

Retail sales appears to be a real jungle and it is amazing how anyone makes a profit. Perhaps one winning strategy is what B&H and some of the other sponsors of this site do; have a main store and also have an active mail-order business. That would seem the best of both worlds. With that said, it would appear that it is the market saturation strategy that sinks them in the end.

Just my two-cents worth.

I have an article, from Time I think, way back when Dell was just getting started. It was trying to add up prices to see how Dell was able to sell its computers so cheap.

The math didn't work out so they were wondering if he was selling them at cost or below. Kind of funny to read now.

I see little Dell kiosks in malls, which are CHEAP to run and always have big muscle-bound computers, laptops and monitors. Great and cheap way to entice buyers.

The Gateway store, at least when I bought one six years ago, really sucked. They had NOTHING there to buy, other than little stuffed cows, mugs and pens. You couldn't ask about upgrades, repairs, etc., though I heard they did better about that stuff later on.

But, Apple has had ENORMOUS success with their Apple stores, probably because they don't really lose a lot of money a year (yeah, they DO only have less than 5% of market share)--actually they're always in the black. But, interesting that those stores do so well. The one in Wellington, Florida has a staff that knows me TOO well...

heath

Well there is only one apple store. There are PC stores on every corner?

There are well over 70 Apple shops and many other small, indie Apple stores all over the nation.

But, yes, PC shops far outweigh Apple shops, but the indie PC shops sometimes carry Apple stuff, too.

heath

Yeah Dell's got it right

But I think Apple got it right too. Their store here in NYC/SOHO is pretty cool. I don't own a Mac but I always end up wandering in there anyway.

It helps that they have Canon videocams to play with, plus they always have free product demonstration in the theatre ... wish I had a place like that for all the Sony/Vegas stuff.

I've never used the info/tech support desk, but it's always full!


Speaking of which, if you're ever in NYC, check out the basement of the Sony store on Madison Ave, cool place to check out. I'm hoping they start giving software! demos like the Apple store.

Apple has stated their goal is about 100 retail stores. When that goal is achieved they will have a retail outlet within 1 hour of about 270 million people (I’m doing this from memory, I may be off on the numbers). I’ve had several discussions with the retail end of Apple and most of their stores do well into the 8 figures in gross sales (annually). Multiply that by 100 stores and that’s a nice chunk of change.

The percentage of Mac users really isn’t important. Mercedes and BMW both have smaller market shares than Apple, yet consumer and other vendors continue to support their product lines. The bottom line is profitability, and Apple continues to be a very well run company.