Apple seems to be pushing its “store-within-a-store” concept this year. The Cupertino company has already established stores within Best Buy in the U.S., and it has plans for a further 25 to be installed within Target stores. But it seems the concept is going international, with plans for an Apple retail store within the world famous Harrods department store in London.
According to sources within Harrods, who have been speaking to 9to5Mac, Apple has plans to take its store-within-a-store concept to London and the U.K.’s largest department store. Harrods occupies over five acres of land in the swanky borough of Chelsea, and boasts over one million square feet of retail space.
There’s plenty of room to take on an Apple store, then. 9to5Mac reports:
The Apple Store will feature most of what makes an Apple Store an Apple Store, like wooden tables and signage, but it will lack one critical element: the Genius Bar. The reasoning is not clear, but the Harrods sources speculate that it may have something to do with Apple wanting to keep that marquee aspect of the retail operations exclusive to its standalone locations. The store will be small in physical size compared to Apple’s other notable stores, but it will be much larger than the typical Apple SIS at Best Buy, for example.
Those of you who are in the U.K. may be thinking that we already have Apple stores within stores. For example, the likes of PC World, Currys, and John Lewis all have dedicated Apple sections. But there is a slight difference. These particular sections are run by the stores themselves, and not Apple. The store set to open within Harrods will be run by Apple and Apple retail staff.
