Apple’s Shaghai China store opens Saturday. With the impending opening comes comparisons with the Cupertino, Calif. company’s New York City flagship. Yep, the same glass cylinder, the same hoopla, the same moat. Moat?
Yes, along with a 40-foot high glass cylinder (with possibly the largest glass panes in the world) is a moat filled with water. While Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson wanted to focus on the “stunning architecture,” the site Shanghaiist wanted to talk about that moat. “There is an inexplicably shallow moat of water surrounding the store, tripping up those who don’t watch their step,” a writer comments. We aren’t sure about that architecture feature, ourselves. Could it be a concession to China’s government leaders, perhaps a way to track potential troublemakers; look for the wet socks?
At any rate, the Shaghai site, Apple’s second since opening a store in Beijing nearly two years ago, includes a bat cave of sorts. You enter the glass cyclinder (watch the moat), then descend a spiral staircase where you enter the actual underground retail space. Apple plans two more locations in Shanghai with 25 total stores in China by 2012. What’s up with Apple’s building boom?
“We believe that if we build it, they will come,” sounded a hopeful Johnson. Apple must compete with the large number of iPhones sold on the black market and get Chinese electronics consumers to walk into a store to purchase a postpaid cell phone, rather than venture down to the corner to pick up a cheap prepaid knock-off.
The new store boasts 1500 square meters of space, chock full of Apple products. The Shanghai store will also offer more than 100 Macs, one of the longest Genius Bars and 175 employees. The workers won’t be your average electronics mouth-breathers, either. The site reported 75 percent will come from Shanghai and 80 percent will hold graduate degrees.
