[Ti] Apple Store Service blows

[XXL]

I participated as a partner in a small Apple dealership thru the late 80's.
Apple was not interested in small guys, even though we provided truly
outstanding service to our customers. The district people were arrogant and
would never listen to us about our local market. They authorized 3
additional dealerships in a city of less than 100,000 population even though
we argued that there was just no way that they could survive.  And they
didn't.  And Apple was left holding the bag to some extent.. Not sure for
how much, but the local banks that financed the additional dealers took a
bath for close to $1 million. That is a lot in a smallish town.  But Apple
moved a lot of product, even if the additional dealers never did.

This is  what is called "channel stuffing". In order for the district guys
to make their bonuses they had to make their quotas.  I can  not remember
how many times I was told to order $X0,000 of merchandise or be
de-authorized. (And this demand from an organization that usually behaved
like they didn't care if we stayed in business or not)  The last time the
Regional head called and said order $250,000 or drop dead. So we told him to
stuff his own channel.  We made a profit, especially on our education
business.  But another $250K investment was just not a reasonable business
decision.  We already had a fortune ir repair part inventory we were coerced
into buying that was obsolete and was never going to move.

Final result? There was not an Apple dealer within 300 miles for over 9
years when Comp USA finally came in.  So do not whine to me about how Apple
does this to see to it that their customers are taken care of.  I would
guess there are very few that had the level of customer service that we
provided.  And Apple took it on the chin as well. Because there was no local
dealer, all the school districts in our area went to Wintel.  And,
realistically,  those are lost forever.  There have been some changes, but
Apple has shamefully mistreated the people that really put them on the map.

Sometimes I could see the  embarrassment of our Apple rep when she was told
to present us with some of the channel stuffing demands that we were
presented with.

Worst of all was I turned down the Popeye's Fried Chicken franchise in favor
of Apple. (that STILL hurts!)
-Joel


> At 9:35 PM -0400 2003.04.08, NaegeleWDC at aol.com wrote:
>> Obviously Steve is correct; however, I assume that Apple is trying to bring
>> the quality of its resellers up to a level approaching that of its Apple
>> Stores, and using its economic power to achieve the goals that it desires....
>><snip>
> 
> 
> The outlets that I know have been cut off are high quality ones, in terms of
> product, appearance, staff and service, not the low quality ones. I'm sure
> that some low-quality ones are being squeezed out also, but that's not a good
> explanation here. Didn't Apple just sign some big retailer like Sears or
> someone? I never found any such large chains that I'd call quality.