The latest Apple (AAPL) expansion will be unveiled Saturday morning on Berkeley's chichi Fourth Street -- another store from the Cupertino company that rewrites old rules of business.
A decade after Steve Jobs showed off the company's first retail store in Tysons Corner, Va., the company has perfected a retail strategy that makes buying iPhones, iPads and other electronics gadgets as much a cultural experience as it is a shopping excursion.
"Just as every device-maker is saying, 'I want to be Apple,' I think every retailer is looking at them, taking notes and saying, 'I want to be like Apple,' " said Steven Addis, CEO of Berkeley-based branding company Addis Creson.
The new Berkeley outlet, which opens at 10 a.m. and is located at 1823 Fourth St., will be the 11th Apple store in the Bay Area and arrives as the company aggressively rolls out new stores across the globe. Apple will open two international stores this weekend. Last week, it opened five new stores -- two in the United States and three overseas, including one in Florence, Italy. During a recent conference call with analysts, Apple said it would open 30 new stores before the end of September.
In Apple's third quarter, the company said, nearly 74 million customers visited Apple stores around the world, up from 60.5 million during the year-ago period.
"Apple can't open the stores fast enough, particularly the international stores," Needham analyst Charlie Wolf said. "Over half of Apple's business is international."
Apple's stores, uncluttered and well-defined by polished wood tables with iPhones an MacBook laptops and open spaces, have become destinations for customers. They are consistently crowded with customers from across the demographic range, from teens to seniors.
"These stores are bulging at the seams," Wolf said. "I went into the Fifth Avenue store (in New York City) a week or two ago, and I couldn't move," he said. "It was unbelievably packed."
The stores not only offer some of the world's hottest-selling devices, but also provide well-informed staff for one-on-one tech tutorials, help desk services at the Genius Bar and assistance in setting up new product purchases.
"As soon as you buy a product, there is someone there who can help you," Wolf said. "There is no fumbling around."
Initially, Jobs envisioned a chain of no more than 100 stores. The decision to sell its own products came as the company struggled to get the attention of consumers in a Microsoft-dominated PC world. Apple's tiny share of the computer market meant resellers were reluctant to allocate sales resources to Macs, Wolf observed in a recent note to investors.
"Apple's only recourse was to open company-owned stores," he wrote.
That was when Apple just sold desktops, laptops, software and accessories. By adding the iPod, and then iPhone and iPad, Apple became the world's tech Zeitgeist. Its products helped redefine the relationship between people and computing devices. The gadgets were no longer simply about productivity, but also entertainment and fashion. And that transformed Apple stores into hubs for people's digital lifestyle.
By the end of September, Apple will have 357 stores around the globe. Last year, it reported that it had 2.5 million square feet in retail space, equivalent to 7,740 square feet per store, Wolf noted. In 2010, the company had average annual store revenue of $34.1 million. That, he added, "translated into sales of $4,406 per square foot, undoubtedly the highest among retail chains in the world."
Apple now overshadows Microsoft, which in 2009 decided to copy its competitor and roll out its own retail stores.
Apple's stores are as much about marketing as selling. In the third quarter that ended June 25, Apple said, revenue from its brick-and-mortar stores soared 36 percent from the year-ago period. About half of the Mactinosh computers sold at stores that quarter were to customers who had never owned a Mac before.
Apple is exacting in deciding where to locate a new store, often choosing the world's most prestigious retail locations -- near the Louvre in Paris, in the heart of Shanghai's gleaming financial center and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a store that's open 24 hours a day.
On Saturday, it will remove the window covering on its Berkeley outlet, located in a high-end shopping area in a building that once housed a furniture store and a few doors down from the famous Bette's Oceanview Diner. It will be the first new Apple store in the Bay Area since the company opened one in San Mateo in 2008.
"Fourth Street is one of the nicest shopping areas in the country," Addis said. "It's really beautiful."
A decade after Steve Jobs showed off the company's first retail store in Tysons Corner, Va., the company has perfected a retail strategy that makes buying iPhones, iPads and other electronics gadgets as much a cultural experience as it is a shopping excursion.
"Just as every device-maker is saying, 'I want to be Apple,' I think every retailer is looking at them, taking notes and saying, 'I want to be like Apple,' " said Steven Addis, CEO of Berkeley-based branding company Addis Creson.
The new Berkeley outlet, which opens at 10 a.m. and is located at 1823 Fourth St., will be the 11th Apple store in the Bay Area and arrives as the company aggressively rolls out new stores across the globe. Apple will open two international stores this weekend. Last week, it opened five new stores -- two in the United States and three overseas, including one in Florence, Italy. During a recent conference call with analysts, Apple said it would open 30 new stores before the end of September.
In Apple's third quarter, the company said, nearly 74 million customers visited Apple stores around the world, up from 60.5 million during the year-ago period.
"Apple can't open the stores fast enough, particularly the international stores," Needham analyst Charlie Wolf said. "Over half of Apple's business is international."
Apple's stores, uncluttered and well-defined by polished wood tables with iPhones an MacBook laptops and open spaces, have become destinations for customers. They are consistently crowded with customers from across the demographic range, from teens to seniors.
"These stores are bulging at the seams," Wolf said. "I went into the Fifth Avenue store (in New York City) a week or two ago, and I couldn't move," he said. "It was unbelievably packed."
The stores not only offer some of the world's hottest-selling devices, but also provide well-informed staff for one-on-one tech tutorials, help desk services at the Genius Bar and assistance in setting up new product purchases.
"As soon as you buy a product, there is someone there who can help you," Wolf said. "There is no fumbling around."
Initially, Jobs envisioned a chain of no more than 100 stores. The decision to sell its own products came as the company struggled to get the attention of consumers in a Microsoft-dominated PC world. Apple's tiny share of the computer market meant resellers were reluctant to allocate sales resources to Macs, Wolf observed in a recent note to investors.
"Apple's only recourse was to open company-owned stores," he wrote.
That was when Apple just sold desktops, laptops, software and accessories. By adding the iPod, and then iPhone and iPad, Apple became the world's tech Zeitgeist. Its products helped redefine the relationship between people and computing devices. The gadgets were no longer simply about productivity, but also entertainment and fashion. And that transformed Apple stores into hubs for people's digital lifestyle.
By the end of September, Apple will have 357 stores around the globe. Last year, it reported that it had 2.5 million square feet in retail space, equivalent to 7,740 square feet per store, Wolf noted. In 2010, the company had average annual store revenue of $34.1 million. That, he added, "translated into sales of $4,406 per square foot, undoubtedly the highest among retail chains in the world."
Apple now overshadows Microsoft, which in 2009 decided to copy its competitor and roll out its own retail stores.
Apple's stores are as much about marketing as selling. In the third quarter that ended June 25, Apple said, revenue from its brick-and-mortar stores soared 36 percent from the year-ago period. About half of the Mactinosh computers sold at stores that quarter were to customers who had never owned a Mac before.
Apple is exacting in deciding where to locate a new store, often choosing the world's most prestigious retail locations -- near the Louvre in Paris, in the heart of Shanghai's gleaming financial center and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a store that's open 24 hours a day.
On Saturday, it will remove the window covering on its Berkeley outlet, located in a high-end shopping area in a building that once housed a furniture store and a few doors down from the famous Bette's Oceanview Diner. It will be the first new Apple store in the Bay Area since the company opened one in San Mateo in 2008.
"Fourth Street is one of the nicest shopping areas in the country," Addis said. "It's really beautiful."
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