The scene: Regent Street by Oxford Circus
The date: Saturday 31st May
The time: 3pm, peak shopping time
I wandered into the Apple Shop on Regent Street. I was momentarily surprised by the sheer amount of people arrayed around the shop. Not just looking. They were buying. Buying, experiencing and loving. It was like the geek equivalent of world famous clothing-shop-for-girls, Top Shop, located just 100m away on Oxford Street. Only there were precious few geeks in the Apple store. They were all normal folk.
Loads of people were fondling the iPhones at the iPhone table. In fact, every table, from the Apple Air to the MacBook tables, were mobbed.
Big queues were being dealt swiftly with happy looking Apple staffers with remote credit card units and little blue ‘thank you’ stickers (you get a thank you sticker to help avoid security guard confusion as you walk out the shop with your purchases).
I marvelled at the brilliance of the Apple brand.
I made my purchase and exited.
Then I walked by the Nokia shop. It’s directly opposite. And it’s a HUGELY depressing place. The shop designers and marketing folk have done their best.
I noticed a mother and teenager daughter walk by the shop window and glance in the window. They couldn’t make out, from the weird and wonderful signage, what the shop ‘did’. They saw the ‘Nokia’ brand and they expected, like most folk, to see pictures of Nokia’s handsets in the window. Instead they just saw weird looking Nokia Maps.
Not useful. A glance across to the Apple shop again and I saw the Mac Air circling in one window and one of the newish iPods on display in the other window.
Gahh. ‘Can’t they get anything right, I thought?’
I was minded to take a QIK video.
But do you know what? I couldn’t be bothered. It’s so depressing.
I looked into the Nokia shop. I knew what I was going to see. So this is peak time on a Saturday. I reckoned maybe, what, 30 people?
No.
7 sales / security people in Nokia garb milled around whilst THREE people (THREE, READ IT AND WEEP, THREE???) ‘shopped’ the store.
Like the mother and her teenage daughter, I didn’t bother going in.
Woe.
Woe is me for Nokia.
I quite like the Regents Street Nokia shop. Like the Apple store, they encourage you to play with phones. I talked to one of the staff there though. She didn't know what my E61i was and hadn't heard of the N96!
Oh dear… I've found them pretty good in the past Martin. That's a bit of
a shame 🙁
That
Apple store then the Nokia store are a favourite route for me when on Regent St – wandered past after the podcast recording the other night.
The Apple store rather annoys me – it's nice and airy, but all the Macs are swarmed with people too cheap to find a real internet cafe (OK – it develops brand loyalty, but dammit on occasion I have actually wanted to fondle a mac with a view to buying it!) and for such a large store the range of accessories is pretty limited… You want a MacBook Air case? There's 2 to choose from… in the largest Apple store in Europe. Sheesh.
On the other-hand as deathly quiet as the Nokia shop is I can always get hands-on with the devices and they have the full range. Shame their staff aren't very savvy – was looking at the Nokia sat nav devices (actual in-car PNDs at the back of the store) and they were clueless.
Oh dear… I've found them pretty good in the past Martin. That's a bit of
a shame 🙁
That’s such a pity because they must have spent loads on a store at that address… Surely the first thing you would do is say to the designers “Have a look across the road… We want that experience, or a bit better please” …
I mean it's not like Nokia don’t have the products, maybe they have too many to focus or push and lose direction because of it.
The Nokia store reminded me of a 3 store or a T-Mobile store, which is a million miles away from the Apple store. Since people spend loads of time checking mail or other sites on the free to use Apple macs maybe Nokia should try and look at phone to website – website to phone services and let people do the same in their store
Oh and get some “I really know Nokia” people in as well, as Apple have them in abundance
Apple store then the Nokia store are a favourite route for me when on Regent St – wandered past after the podcast recording the other night.
The Apple store rather annoys me – it's nice and airy, but all the Macs are swarmed with people too cheap to find a real internet cafe (OK – it develops brand loyalty, but dammit on occasion I have actually wanted to fondle a mac with a view to buying it!) and for such a large store the range of accessories is pretty limited… You want a MacBook Air case? There's 2 to choose from… in the largest Apple store in Europe. Sheesh.
On the other-hand as deathly quiet as the Nokia shop is I can always get hands-on with the devices and they have the full range. Shame their staff aren't very savvy – was looking at the Nokia sat nav devices (actual in-car PNDs at the back of the store) and they were clueless.
I quite like the Regents Street Nokia shop. Like the Apple store, they encourage you to play with phones. I talked to one of the staff there though. She didn't know what my E61i was and hadn't heard of the N96!
Oh dear… I've found them pretty good in the past Martin. That's a bit of
a shame 🙁
That’s such a pity because they must have spent loads on a store at that address… Surely the first thing you would do is say to the designers “Have a look across the road… We want that experience, or a bit better please” …
I mean it's not like Nokia don’t have the products, maybe they have too many to focus or push and lose direction because of it.
The Nokia store reminded me of a 3 store or a T-Mobile store, which is a million miles away from the Apple store. Since people spend loads of time checking mail or other sites on the free to use Apple macs maybe Nokia should try and look at phone to website – website to phone services and let people do the same in their store
Oh and get some “I really know Nokia” people in as well, as Apple have them in abundance
Apple store then the Nokia store are a favourite route for me when on Regent St – wandered past after the podcast recording the other night.
The Apple store rather annoys me – it's nice and airy, but all the Macs are swarmed with people too cheap to find a real internet cafe (OK – it develops brand loyalty, but dammit on occasion I have actually wanted to fondle a mac with a view to buying it!) and for such a large store the range of accessories is pretty limited… You want a MacBook Air case? There's 2 to choose from… in the largest Apple store in Europe. Sheesh.
On the other-hand as deathly quiet as the Nokia shop is I can always get hands-on with the devices and they have the full range. Shame their staff aren't very savvy – was looking at the Nokia sat nav devices (actual in-car PNDs at the back of the store) and they were clueless.