Apple Store in Ridgeland Hits ‘Snag’

ROTFLMAO. I'm verklempt at the thought that Ridgeland is going to tell Apple how to design their store.

Apple will design it like we like it, else they won't come to Ridgeland. Mary Hawkins has taught us well. If Madison can make Yall's Mart bow and moan, we can make Apple curtsy. Ridgeland's new motto is "Come as We Like or Don't Come at All." Vendors and business people are chopping at the bits to get into Ridgeland. Back then they didn't want us; now, we're hot and they're all on us.

Ridgeland is the new Madison. All you have to do is see the Whataburger and McDonald's on County Line Rd., as well as the Alumni House sports bar on 51 for evidence.

????That Whataburger looks like any other one I've ever seen? And what about Alumni House? Am I missing something?

Sarcasm, Reximus.

And a healthy dose of snark.

The Whataburger is snarky & sarcastic? WTF?

Just heard yesterday that Apple basically said whatever, and they're complying w/ the request. I look forward to going in there, being a Mac guy myself.

Wow. The a Gold N' Guns Pawn Shop sits in full, tacky view on Highway 51 and there's concern for the "transition" of Apple's storefront design.

Just, wow.

Actually, that part of 51 is being targeted by the city as the most important part of town to change the look of. 51 between County Line and Rice Rd does resemble Pearl a bit.

That's the suburbs for you.

I hope that you're right, Reximus. I'd hate for the area to lose an Apple store due to pretension.

And, I guess this puts the "Apple isn't coming to Renaissance (no way, no how!!!) since their Monster listing had a Jackson P.O. box" scenario to rest.

What do you mean by that, Golden Eagle?

C-L confirms it: Apple store coming to Mississippi

I hope this dosen't spell doom for User Friendly, which was a defeacto Apple Store in Madison Co. for several years.
P.S. MicroSoft sucks.

My gut tells me that User Friendly will do okay, because it's always relied on repeat business and neighborhood clients. CompUSA's Mac division didn't seem to affect them either way, for example, and when CompUSA shut down, they still didn't try to maintain a big inventory. They were never all that aggressive, and while this means they never grew during the flush times, it means that they're not likely to go under during the lean times either.

What bugs me about the Apple Store, though, is that it's going in Ridgeland when Fondren is such an obvious primo location for an Apple Store, given the arts community (Mac being basically an arts platform), the more central location, and the number of Mac users in the vicinity. But just because Ridgeland gets the first Apple Store in the metro area doesn't mean it'll get the last...

I'm sure Apple did their market research and it was not so macro oriented. I was just happy to see we got them here,Ridgeland or not (& yes I live in Ridgeland). I saw where's there's only 200 nationwide.

What bugs me about the Apple Store, though, is that it's going in Ridgeland when Fondren is such an obvious primo location for an Apple Store, given the arts community (Mac being basically an arts platform), the more central location, and the number of Mac users in the vicinity. But just because Ridgeland gets the first Apple Store in the metro area doesn't mean it'll get the last...

What would make sense would be User Friendly (or similar) down here in Fondren and the Apple Store in the burbs - aside from their hip-city locations, it seems that a *lot* of Apple Stores in the burbs, and often in the swankiest new "mall." They're trying to get walk-in traffic to play with iPhones and jazzy MacBook Airs and such...preaching to the unconverted, no doubt.

Remember, the guy that runs Apple Retail used to run the Gap. ;-)

That's not to say I wouldn't *support* the Apple Store in Fondren...that'd be awesome in the Duling School. (And it would no doubt hit me right in the wallet.) But it hasn't been their m.o. thus far.

"Remember, the guy that runs Apple Retail used to run the Gap. ;-)" -itodd

It's well known that Apple retail employees get more than enough certifications, training, and culture cramming while visiting (oftentimes for weeks) Cupertino. So, that Gap guy will certainly know more than most avid Mac users and dare I say most "power users." Don't even dare their creatives and genius folks.

As for User Friendly... What a horrible name for their game. The customer service and crappy attitude does nothing for potential Mac users and does nothing for most Mac users I know. If anything, it reinforces the elitist snob mentality most people attach to Mac users.

Went there to buy my first Mac... My mother wouldn't let me drop a dollar in the store because the service was so awful. I actually bought my first G3 from the Apple Store using one of User Friendly's setups. Cute, eh? I'm all about local and independent, but I will never pay for less-than-stellar customer service and poor attitudes.

Thank the gods there's an alternative coming to town....

*Late summer from my own investigations.

It's well known that Apple retail employees get more than enough certifications, training, and culture cramming while visiting (oftentimes for weeks) Cupertino. So, that Gap guy will certainly know more than most avid Mac users and dare I say most "power users." Don't even dare their creatives and genius folks.

Who said anything about how much the Gap guy "knows"? Saying he came over from the Gap doesn't suggest AT ALL that Apple store reps don't know what they're doing. I've never met an Apple Store employee who wasn't friendly and seem to be on top of their game. I certainly know I'm more likely to talk to them than have one of those soul-crushing conversations I used to be forced into with sales folks at CompUSA (who were generally nice people but clueless about Macs).

All I'm saying is that experience from the Gap helped shape Apple's retail store strategy -- so it follows that they put the stores mostly in malls and suburbs, with some exceptions in big city shopping districts where hipness drives location (SoHo, Market Street).

As far as I can tell, it's not exactly part of Apple's mission to use Apple Stores for in-town eco-devo, even if that's where the core creative class audience might be. Apple Stores are for reaching out with the brand and, as you note, for taking back the customer service experience from mom-and-pops and store-within-a-store concepts.

From the horse's mouth back in 2001:

To achieve that goal, Apple is opening the stores in "high-traffic gathering places," Jobs said. That "other 95 percent" will be unlikely to drive six miles to an Apple Store, but they might easily walk six feet on a busy street or mall, he added. Apple's strategy is to "ambush the other 95 percent" where they more regularly shop, Jobs said.

A little unrelated, but here's a very fun piece on Apple Store Strategy -- how the salespeople are trained and why the soft-pedal sales pitch works.

I have had both great and not so great experiences with User Friendly. At times they have been very helpful. At other times it seemed I was in a long line of customers and basically they didn't need my business. I think in this case a little competition is good. I also think a freelance mac guru dedicated to that job only could make serious $$ in this town.

Also, is it just me, or is customer service in general basically in a terrible decline? I had to work on a cel phone issue for my office and after 5 months and about 20 calls & 4 visits to the store I FINALLY found a woman who had worked there for 11 years and knew what she was doing. It took her maybe 6 calls & 20 min. to sort it all out. they have so many different databases and service departments.

I was literally desiring to fall down on the floor and kiss her feet, such was my gratitude for excellent customer service.

It burns me, that we use our hours of work time to scramble and push our way through these mazes of customer "service"

[rant over]

well, it looks like it is going up and it seems as though apple design got their way... unless they trick it out with some aluminum columns mayor mary style

a couple photos...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=6079118