Apple Announces Plans to Reopen Retail Stores
Apple made the unprecedented step of closing most of its physical stores earlier this year (see “Responding to COVID-19, Apple Closes All Stores Outside China,” 14 March 2020). Now the company has reopened nearly 100 of them, and Apple Senior Vice President of Apple Retail + People Deirdre O’Brien has penned an open letter outlining Apple’s precautions when opening stores, which it will do only after evaluating the local COVID-19 spread, near and long-term trends, and recommendations from local and national authorities. Apple will limit how many people can enter a store at one time, and employees and customers alike will be required to wear masks. Apple will provide masks to customers who need them and also conduct temperature checks at the door. Hopefully, Apple customers will be more understanding than they have been at other outlets.
O’Brien said Apple is renewing its focus on one-on-one personalized service not just at the Genius Bar, but also throughout the entire store. While we’d still be wary of entering an Apple Store right now, if you have a broken product, the Genius Bar may be your best bet for getting back to work quickly. Apple recommends its Find a Store tool to see if a store near you is open, but you might find Michael Steeber’s Google Map of Apple Store reopenings more helpful.
And it looks like some Apple Stores are closing again.
https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1274014085563080705?s=20
I refer to my Apple Store Index theory of how safe a given area is: https://theprepared.com/blog/the-apple-store-index-says-its-not-yet-time-to-reopen-the-economy/
Josh, this is an excellent, and as usual, a well written analysis.
An interesting twist…Microsoft just announced it is permanently closing all its retail stores:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.barrons.com/amp/articles/microsoft-store-announces-new-approach-to-retail-01593176738
Over the last number of years, every time I went to an Apple Store in a mall it was stuffed to the gills with people, usually with people waiting outside to get in. There was usually a Microsoft Store nearby, with maybe 6-8 kids playing video games in it. I’m surprised the MS Stores lasted this long.
Josh mentioned that in Slack this morning, and my reaction was “Microsoft still has stores?”