retail - page 5

The International Data Corporation (IDC) released preliminary data yesterday from its Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet Tracker. The study shows that total worldwide tablet shipments for the second quarter of 2012 are estimated at 25 million units, which is up from 18.7 last quarter. That’s a quarter-over-quarter increase of 33.6 percent, says the data analysis company, reflecting the total year-over-year growth rate of 66.2 percent of retail tablets in the US.

Guess which tablet is the largest part of those numbers?

Apple may be the only major company operating the mobile space that hasn’t announced a partnership or trial related to delivering mobile payments and creating an iWallet. While it seems a forgone conclusion that Apple will eventually enter the mobile payment market, a recent statement by James Le Brocq, managing director at O2 Money (a division of the U.K. mobile carrier O2) illustrates why Apple hasn’t yet entered the that market and why that’s a good move for Apple: consumers aren’t that interested in mobile payments.

Back in June, we reported on a study that showed that the average iPad user is extremely likely to make a purchase or research a product after seeing an ad on his or her device. A more recent study supports that research and notes that for one-third of iPad/tablet owners, shopping is their favorite tablet-based activity.

In 2012, there’s nothing that lends prestige, luxury and credibility to a shopping space like an Apple Store. From that perspective, it’s the Tiffany’s or Sak’s of the 21st Century.

In fact, it looks as if the Apple Store was considered to be such a prestigious draw that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority bent over backwards to make sure it could get Apple to lease a space in the famous Grand Central Terminal… at the expense of other applicants.

After months of construction work on the old Banco Espanol de Credito building on Passeig de Gracia, Apple has today taken the wraps off of its new flagship retail store in Barcelona, Spain. Cult of Mac has exclusive first pics from the scene.

Back in June, Cult of Mac reported that Apple was set to introduce a new requirement for iOS apps that meant every single one had to ship with an icon measuring a whopping 1024×1024 pixels for Retina display devices. Developers are now reporting that the same requirement has been applied to Mac apps being sold through the Mac App Store, and that they cannot physically upload their apps without them.

Mobile payment technologies have an interesting and complicated relationship with local businesses. On the one hand, local mom-and-pop restaurants, shops, and services are probably the companies that you’d expect to adopt new payment technologies the slowest – particularly if those technologies require new point of sale hardware like an NFC reader. On the other hand, mobile payment systems could be poised to deliver a new wave of business to such local companies.

Making the situation more complicated is the fact that any mobile payment system (Google Wallet, PayPal in-store purchasing, or any system that Apple may be slowly developing) can’t be considered a solid winner or option unless that system strikes it big with local businesses. A system that only applies to large chains, like the in-store purchasing the PayPal rolled out to Home Depot and other retailers, can’t be considered mainstream unless it’s adopted very widely and by a significant percentage of small businesses.

Further complicating the relationship is the fact that many players in the race to create a true digital wallet are on focusing widely varying options for small and local businesses. That means that no one company is leading and no company really seems to have a consistent strategy for tapping this immense and important market.

No sir, that’s not an Apple store you’re looking at, that there is a bona fide Samsung store. What looks like an episode of Punk’d, is actually Samsung’s first Canadian retail store in Metro Vancouver. This 140-square-metre store is located in Burnaby’s Metropolis at Metrotown and offers a plethora of Samsung’s latest mobile devices, as well as demo stations to see how they function and interact with other Samsung products such as TVs.

We’re nearly halfway through July, and while the vast majority of us are enjoying the summer weather (unless you live in the U.K. where it continues to rain), retailers are already preparing for Christmas. U.K. retailer Currys and PC World just published its of predictions for the top ten gifts this holiday, and at number four it lists an “Apple mystery device” with pricing to be confirmed.

Could this mystery device be the upcoming iPad mini?

According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, Best Buy is prototyping a new retail store experience that borrows heavily from the Apple Store. Unlike the traditional retail layout of cluttered displays and long checkout lines, Best Buy is testing a more open environment that allows customers to pay at multiple locations in the store.

Also borrowing from Apple’s strategy, the whole retail experience focuses more on connecting customers with Best Buy employees to help answer questions about products. The test store is located near Best Buy’s headquarters in Richfield, Minnesota.

If you thought your Lego construction skills were formidable, check out what H.K. Leung has built: a Lego replica of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store, complete with see-through spiral staircase and glass cube on top. It’s incredible.

As Apple’s devices become increasingly popular, so do its retail stores. It’s almost impossible to walk into one and see a Genius without an appointment, and even with an appointment you can almost guarantee there will be a lengthy wait. But Apple hopes to improve this with a new Genius Bar layout that increases capacity from 7 to 12 customers, simply by turning a table 90° and adding a few extra stools.

Read enough articles about NFC and its potential for mobile payments and you’ll find yourself thinking the technology is the inevitable mobile payment platform. Every major mobile platform except iOS already includes or will include support for NFC-enabled devices. There are lots of partnerships being announced between key players like device manufacturers, carriers, and banking or credit card companies. It also just seems to make sense that this is the future.

Until you look up from all the stories about what NFC and look at what’s really happening in the  world. You don’t see much evidence of NFC payment systems in everyday life. NFC isn’t yet emerging into mainstream commerce, but there is ample evidence that mobile payments are taking off without it. Those options becoming mainstream are decidedly low tech by comparison, but that’s precisely why they’re succeeding.

Earlier today, we reported that Siri had leaked Apple’s plans to open up a new retail store in the Broadway shopping center in Sydney, Australia. It seems, however, that it wasn’t such a big secret after all, because the Cupertino company has already begun work on the new outlet, as these images sent into Cult of Mac prove.

Over the weekend, The NY Times posted another investigative piece in its iEconomy series that about Apple. This installment focused on Apple’s retail stores. As with previous articles in the series, this one focuses on legitimate concerns about the American economy in an age of globalization. Like the other pieces, this one targets Apple specifically and ignores the range of Apple competitors that employ similar practices.

The primary issue that the Times brings up with regard to Apple retail stores is that employees can sell thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of Apple products and still earn a relatively modest wage. The underlying sentiment is that if a retail employee sells so much hardware, he should earn more because he is contributing to Apple’s vast revenues.

The only way for things to shake out that way and remain fair would be if Apple offered performance-based awards or commissions. Apple chose not to do that because doing so would have delivered a fundamentally different customer experience than the one envisioned by Steve Jobs – a fact that the NY Times chose not to explore in any real depth.

Let’s look at a few facts.

Apple Retail stores were the number one retailer last year, taking in more money per square foot than any other US retailer, including number two Tiffany, which made a bit more than half of that. Sounds good, right? Then take a look at what a retail employee, Jordan Golson, has to say.

“I was earning $11.25 an hour,” he said. “Part of me was thinking, ‘This is great. I’m an Apple fan, the store is doing really well.’ But when you look at the amount of money the company is making and then you look at your paycheck, it’s kind of tough.”

The disconnect between the incredible success of the corporation and the relatively low-end pay scale of its retail employees, as well as the reasons those retail employees continue to work for Apple, is the subject of a report in the New York Times today.

Like all of Apple’s popular products, the MacBook Pro suffered a shipping delay soon after it went on sale on Monday. It first appeared in the Apple online store with a 5-7 day wait, but it didn’t take long before than turned into 7-10 days. On Tuesday the delay slipped again to 2-3 weeks. And this morning that situation has only gotten worse.

Apparently, Apple retail stores are like catnip (or, something stronger, no doubt) to cities across the US. According to a new report, Apple is courted by cities looking to capture the extra cash of the tragically young and hip urban consumers that Apple Stores bring to area malls everywhere.

Over the past two years, we’ve seen the iPad integrated into a number of different workplaces. While most iPad in business stories focus on the freedom that the iPad offers, the story of the iPad and iPod touch in one Brooklyn restaurant illustrates that in addition to freedom and flexibility, adopting Apple’s mobile platform can save you a lot of cold hard cash.  

NFC isn’t a new technology. Android and BlackBerry phones with NFC capabilities have been available for a while now and various companies have started looking at implementing NFC as a mobile payment or digital wallet solution. Google Wallet being the most well-known while MasterCard’s new PayPass Wallet Services, which the company announced on Monday is the newest and potentially broadest in scope

Apple, however, hasn’t shown much interest in adding NFC to the iPhone. The lack of NFC hasn’t kept mobile payment options off the iPhone – as we’ve recently reported T.G.I. Fridays and Tabbedout, Boston’s light rail commuter service, and AmTrak have all moved to offer mobile payments using the Starbucks app/virtual card model.

A new deal between Apple and location-based deals startup Pirq, to offer daily food and drink deals to the company’s employees in silicon valley could be a sign of Apple testing the waters with both a deals network and whether such ecommerce options make sense for iPhone users.

Earlier this week, Boston’s commuter rail system announced plans for a program that will allow riders to purchase tickets right on their iPhones and display a scannable code as proof of purchase. The model follows the success that Starbucks has had in using its iPhone app as a virtual gift card.

Not to be outdone, drugstore and pharmacy chain CVS recently added similar functionality to its CVS Pharmacy app.

Jibes at the iPhone and its users clearly aren’t enough to attract the attention of Apple’s customers, so Samsung is taking a more direct approach. Today the Korean company sent a screaming flashmob equipped with big “Wake Up” signs to protest outside of an Apple retail store in Sydney, Australia.

Head on by the kiddy table at your local Apple Store and you used to see four iMacs, loaded up with educational software and games. Go on by with your kid today and you’ll see four iPads running educational iOS apps instead.

Hope they wipe those things down frequently: never seen a kid without at least several culture farms worth of germs on his or her pink, sticky hands. Those iPads are going to be disease-crusted petri dishes after a day’s worth of kids finish sliming them up.

Otherwise, great call. The only better learning tool for a child than an iMac is an iPad.

Apple’s retail division is like none other in the world. Ron Johnson and Steve Jobs created the most profitable, and arguably best overall, consumer retail experience together way back in 2001. Fast forward to today and Apple Stores are outperforming all other retailers by a wide margin.

Specifically, new research shows that Apple Stores are performing 17 times better than the average retailer. Two luxury brands, Tiffany and Coach, trail behind in a distance second and third.

Apple retail stores in London have begun stocking international parts ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games as the company prepares for an “onslaught” of international journalists seeking repairs. Many of the journalists covering the event, which kicks off on July 27, are expected to be carrying Apple notebooks, so international keyboards are expected to be high in demand.