Retail Store'S Secret: Annual Sales Of $44 Thousand Per Square Meter

According to foreign media reports, although apple is the most valuable technology company in the world, Apple Corp's success in Apple Corp has been surprisingly low in technology: retail chain.

Jobs (Steve Jobs) uses

Looking at confidential training manuals, a record of a store meeting and interviews with more than a dozen current and former salesmen, you can see some secrets of Apple store.

These secrets include: strictly controlling the way of interaction between employees and customers, standardizing training of technical support staff, considering every detail of the store, and meticulously preloading pictures and music on the prototype.

According to apple and Themed Entertainment Association, last year, the largest four theme parks of The Walt Disney Company Walt Disney (Co.) were 60 million tourists, and the number of customers who visited 326 stores in one quarter exceeded this figure.

According to Needham & Co., an investment bank, Apple stores have a year of every square foot.

Apple store has spacious and fresh space and beautiful light, showing a relaxed atmosphere.

But Apple keeps a lid on how these stores operate.

According to Apple's current and former employees, employees were told not to discuss rumors about products, and technicians could not recognize the general malfunction too early. Anyone who was found to write about Apple Corp on the Internet would be dismissed.

The behind the scenes Apple store is Johnson, 52, Ron Johnson.

Penney Company (J.C. Penney Co) confirmed on Tuesday that Johnson will become its new chief executive in November.

The success of Apple's retail business is largely due to people's demand for the company's products.

Sales philosophy: not for sale, but for customers.

Apple, however, is seen as a pioneer in many aspects of customer service and store design.

According to the description of several employees and the contents of the training manual, the sales commissioner was taught an unusual marketing philosophy: not for sales, but for customers to solve problems.

One of the training manuals says that your job is to understand all the needs of customers, some of which may not be realized by customers themselves.

In view of this, employees have no sales commission or sales quotas.

David Ambrose, 26, worked in an apple store in Arlington, Virginia, until 2007.

He said, you are never trying to finalize a sales deal, but to find solutions for customers and find their pain points.

According to a 2007 staff training manual read by the Wall Street journal, apple condensed its "service steps" into "APPLE", each letter representing one step.

This manual is still in use.

It is divided into five steps: "welcome customers with personalized warm welcome words", "politely inquire to understand all the needs of customers", "provide customers with a solution that can bring home today", "listen to and solve any problems or concerns", "end with moderate repetition, and invite customers to come again".

Apple's control of customer experience extends to the smallest detail.

Apple stores' confidential training manuals instruct technicians to tell their customers what emotional words are: listen and limit your response to a simple guarantee that you are doing it.

"Uh huh", "I understand" and so on.

If Apple employees arrive late for more than six minutes in three shifts within six months, they may be fired.

According to former Apple employees, although there are no sales quotas, employees must sell service packages with products.

Depending on the specific store, employees with insufficient sales will receive retraining or be assigned to other jobs.

Analysts say many retailers strive to provide excellent customer service and attractive store design, but few companies arrange every detail as carefully as apple does.

For example, chain store Nordstrom Inc. has little customer service training, but expects salesmen to learn at work.

Daiches Institute Brian chairman of the Retail Design Institute said that as for storefront design, most retailers choose a model and launch them in large numbers. By contrast, apple often changes the appearance and atmosphere of the store.

The success of apple in its stores has made it outstanding when many retailers are struggling.

Apple retail sales rose by about 7% in 2009, when retail sales fell by 2.4%.

Retail sales fell for the first time in decades in 2009, according to Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy.

In 2010, Apple's retail sales excluding online sales surged 70% to $11 billion 700 million, accounting for about 15% of revenue ($76 billion 300 million), easily surpassing 4.5% of the overall retail sales.

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The history of Apple retail stores

Although today's stores are one of the apple offensive weapons, the intention of setting up stores is to defend.

When Jobs returned to apple in 1996, 11 years later, Apple was in a difficult position.

Apple Macintosh computers can hardly be seen in large retailers like CompUSA (now owned by Systemax Inc.).

Jobs's top priority at that time was to adjust Apple's retail strategy because Apple's brand was already very fragile, and large retailers refused to stock Macintosh computers.

According to people familiar with the situation, even though Apple Corp was developing new products at the time, Jobs knew that if customers had no place to buy these products, it would be useless to launch new products.

Apple soon tried to build its own showroom inside big retail stores like CompUSA.

The insider said, but Jobs realized that in the retail market, Apple Corp could not control the personal experience of customers.

It is a natural choice to set up a retail store at this time.

In 1999, Jobs hired Gap Inc., former president of Gap Gap, to join Apple's board of directors and gave advice on Apple's retail strategy.

At the suggestion of Drexler, apple hired Johnson of Target company in charge of retail business in 2000.

Johnson is the behind the scenes hero of Target's trademark home product series.

Johnson's main achievement in apple is to launch a Genius Bar service that provides professional and technical support in retail stores, and has developed a detailed way of customer service for retail stores.

Many analysts said on Tuesday that although Johnson's departure was a major loss to apple, Apple's retail business has grown even without Johnson.

Initially, many members of the Apple Corp retail team came from Gap, who often joked that they were working in Gapple.

At that time, Gap was regarded as an idol because its brand image and fashion are new, and its brand stores are well run.

According to people familiar with the matter, the idea of opening the first prototype shop in a warehouse on Bubb road in Cooper, California is Drexler's proposal.

The store is adjacent to Apple Corp headquarters.

There, apple designed the store layout, and highlighted the possible use of products, rather than stacking goods like traditional retailers.

People who know the plan say that Johnson put forward a special area for technical support and named it "Genius Bar".

The most popular products of Apple Corp are placed in the most prominent position in the store.

A child area is also specially set up in the shop. Children can play on the elastic ball and play the children's software preset inside the iMac.

Jobs once said in the video of Apple prototype store that people no longer want to buy a personal computer, but they want to know what they can do when they buy a computer.

Apple Corp spent a whole year testing its philosophy.

In May 2001, apple opened the first two retail stores in Virginia's high-end shopping center Tysons' Corner and Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California (Glendale).

Just two years later, apple opened more than 70 stores in Chicago, Honolulu and Tokyo.

At that time, consumer electronics stores often looked like warehouses, full of accessories, pamphlets and all kinds of wires.

In contrast, Apple's store layout is open and not messy. Stores use natural materials such as wood, glass, stone and stainless steel.

Eight Inc., a San Francisco design company, has helped Apple design retail stores. The company's chief designer, Wilhelm Oehl, said Jobs had told them whether they would be wisest to decide whether to keep questioning.

Over the past ten years, Apple retail outlets are becoming more and more attractive.

They opened shops in the Louvre of Paris, while a direct store in Lujiazui, Shanghai (600663, stock bar) was located under 40 feet of glass columns.

Working at Apple retail store

To work in Apple stores, this process may be full of competition. Generally, there are at least two rounds of interviews.

Several employees and former employees at Apple Store say job seekers will be asked questions about leadership and problem-solving skills, and will be asked if they are passionate about Apple products.

Retail experts say most retailers have to look around for people willing to work for them, and many Apple stores are crowded with job seekers.

Once employed, employees will be widely trained.

They will learn how to use Apple's customer service principles in training courses.

The new staff of the store must follow the more experienced colleagues to learn in the field, and can not communicate with customers without permission.

The training process may last for weeks or even longer.

Freedman Harry Friedman, a retail consultancy, said that it is not uncommon for Apple stores to invest in staff training at Apple's level. But Apple employees are generally fans of Apple products and are very willing to understand the company's situation. So in essence, Apple's training is more effective than other companies, Friedman Group.

Bruce, 23, worked for three and a half years at an apple retail store in Virginia, Keith, and resigned in December 2009.

He told him that training should let him know that he should pay attention to what he can do in his store rather than what he can not do.

If a customer misreads a product name, he can not correct the customer, because it will make the customer feel that the salesperson is in a condescending manner in front of them.

Candidates for "gifted" technical support positions will receive more training around the world. They will get technical certificates and regular examinations after passing the customs.

The training courses offered to them include even language training.

Former "genius" employees said they were told that when they could not solve a technical problem, they should say "facts" instead of "regrettable", which would sound less negative.

According to people familiar with the situation, gifted positions often receive three times the appointment applications, so they are always very eager.

Apple retail stores are responsible for selling around 9 to 15 dollars per hour, and the gifted employees earn a maximum salary of around 30 dollars, similar to other retailers.

Some employees who had hoped to be pferred to the Apple Corp said that when they realized that such opportunities were rare, they chose to resign.

A worker who works at Apple retail store in San Francisco is even trying to establish a trade union. Now he has set up a website, and has also opened a web page on Facebook, asking apple to raise wages.