| Friday, October 22, 2004 |
14:51 - The student has surpassed the master
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/10/21/sony.stores.ap/index.html
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From the look of this article forwarded by JMH, Sony is feeling a bit "beleaguered" itself these days.
Apparently Apple has had such resounding success with its retail stores that every other hip tech company across the board has jumped onto the retail bandwagon, from Bose to Samsung, each promising its own unique and innovative approach to showcasing its products and proving to the existing retail base that it's not trying to eat their lunch. But not many of them, evidently, are meeting with the kind of insane lining-up-out-the-door accolades as Apple's fans still give their stores. And now Sony has some decidedly flustering hurdles to clear in their own bid to become mallwalker magnets:
Sony's store carried a few gadgets that weren't sold at Best Buy or Circuit City, including its new 20-gigabyte, $400 digital music player, Sony's answer to Apple's iPod, and its latest lightweight Vaio laptop for $3,000.
When scouting locations, Sony looks at shopping malls with the most sales in the nation's top 50 markets and bargains for the busiest sections of those malls.
The Costa Mesa store, which is next to Gucci, is about 6,000 square feet, roughly one-seventh the size of a Best Buy. The tight quarters means selection is limited to about 18 televisions, 15 computers and 12 camcorders. The stores offer everything from $20 headphones to a $20,000 projection television.
On a recent Wednesday evening, men outnumbered women about four to one.
Armand Darbish, a 44-year-old engineer, left empty-handed in his search for a wireless networking card, disappointed with the small selection.
"They don't really understand the techie stuff," he said.
Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem like it's a particularly good sign when Sony can't inspire its customers to label them as being good at "techie stuff".
Meanwhile, it's sort of sad to see the Dell kiosk sitting in the middle of a mall aisle, occupying the same footprint as a watch repair stand, getting customers to fill out forms to have their gear shipped to them from the factory, instead of being able to walk out of there with the new toy you just swiped across the laser scanner in the sheet-metal wall. Hey, I guess one can't argue with Dell, but it just seems like such a dreary alternative...
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Brian Tiemann
