Amaya Toman The return of Steve Jobs was a really important milestone for Apple and at the same time a harbinger of a number of important changes and innovations. It was followed, for example, by the release of the highly successful iMac, and the iPod came a little later. Equally important was the launch of the online Apple Store, which has already been 10 years old on November 22 of this year.
With Jobs, a revolution came to Apple in the form of the termination of some products, the introduction of a number of novelties, and the already mentioned launch of online sales. Although it didn't seem like it at the time, the last step was one of the most crucial for Apple's survival in the market. In the 1990s, you would still be looking for a brick-and-mortar Apple Store in vain - customers got their Macs through specialized distributors or large retail chains.
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At that time, however, the expertise of the employees of these chains could be highly doubted, and their priority was not a satisfied customer, but only profit - and that was not really brought to them by Apple products at the time. Macs were therefore often cowering in the corner, ignored, and many stores did not even stock Apple products.
The change was supposed to be brought about by the concept of a "shop in a shop". Apple concluded an agreement with CompUSA, under which a special corner was to be reserved for Apple products in selected stores. This step raised sales slightly, but it was still not enough, not to mention that Apple still did not have 100% control over the sales of its products.
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In the second half of the nineties of the last century, the most diverse e-shops were mostly in their infancy. One such was operated by Dell, which started its creation in 1995. In December 1996, the e-shop was already earning the company a million dollars a day.
"In 1996, Dell pioneered online retail, and Dell's online store at the time has been the standard for online shopping sites until now," stated Steve Jobs at the time. "With our online store, we are basically setting a new standard for e-commerce. And we'd like to tell you, Michael, that with our new products, our new store, and our custom manufacturing, we're coming after you, my friend,” he said to Michal Dell.
The online Apple Store has done really well since the beginning. In its first month, it made Apple $12 million—an average of about $730 a day, which is three-quarters of the daily revenue Dell made from its online store during its first six months of operation. However, the management of the online Apple Store then and today cannot be compared. Apple no longer publishes exact sales figures for its products, and in the XNUMXs it didn't profit from services like it does today.
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Petr Škuta The launch of online sales was literally pivotal to getting Apple back on its feet and successfully returning to the market. Today, the Apple e-shop is an integral part of the company's business. The company also uses its website for promotion, and whenever it takes it down temporarily for new products, it's not without media attention. Queues in front of Apple stores are slowly becoming a thing of the past – people use pre-orders at the e-shop and often wait for their dream product in the comfort of their homes. The company no longer needs any chains or sales intermediaries. Behind what may seem ridiculously simple at first glance, there is a huge amount of work, effort and invention.
Source: Apple Insider
