Time runs out for Apple Watch pop-up shop experiment

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apple watch
Tokyo store is the last of Apple's three Apple Watch pop-up shops.
Photo: Apple

Apple is closing the last of its remaining Apple Watch pop-up shops. Based in Tokyo, the last of the mini-stores is located in Shinjuku’s high-end Isetan department store. It will shut its door next month.

A message outside the store reads, “This is a notice that Apple Watch at Isetan Shinjuku will close as of Sunday, May 13. Thank you very much for your continuous patronage.”

The store first opened in March 2015, giving it a lifespan of just over three years. It was one of three Apple Watch pop-up shops Apple launched to celebrate its debut wearable device. The other two were located in Galeries Lafayette in Paris and Selfridges in London. Both closed in 2017.

All three were part of an earlier push by Apple to make the Apple Watch a high-end fashion item, most noticeably through the selling of the $10,000+ Apple Watch Edition. As I wrote at the time:

“[The Shinjuku Isetan store] is considered to be among the most influential department stores in Japan — with the fashion floor particularly renowned for showing off new trends which go on to take the country by storm. In other words, it’s an extension of the same strategy that saw the Apple Watch receive spreads in the world’s most exclusive fashion publications.”

Now that Apple seems to have moved away from marketing the Apple Watch as a fashion item, in place of a focus on fitness, there’s no reason to keep the store open. Particularly since Apple no longer sells the “big ticket” item that was the Apple Watch Edition.

Via: MacRumors

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