On May 19th, 2001 the first two retail stores of Apple was opened. The retails stores were located at Glendale, California and Tysons Corner, Virginia. This year, May 19th, 2016 marked the 15th year Anniversary for the two stores. Over 7,700 people were welcomed and during the first two‐day weekend, the combined sales of merchandises by the stores touched around $599,000. By the end of the year, there were 25 more stores that were opened by Apple.
Steve Jobs who was the co‐founder of Apple has spearheaded the retail initiative. He had also need for better customer experience was also recognized by him instead of providing that experience through third party retailers like Circuit City. Ron Johnson, who was the former vice president of merchandising for Target and Millard Drexler the CEO of Gap, helped Jobs in leading the retail team.
It was also believed by a few critics that the retail stores of Apple would have been a failure especially due to the collapse of the dot‐com, however it was proved to be one that was successful and profitable and more often the highest sales per square foot was generated in comparison to any other retailer in the US.
The first retail store of the company that was opened outside America was in Tokyo, Japan on November 30th, 2003. Presently there are 475 stores that are operational across places like United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Hong Kong, Germany, France, China, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, Australia, US and US.
Even the expansion of the Apple store in the second largest revenue market China has been on full swing under Angela Ahrendts leadership. There have various renovations that have been carried out in stores located at Memphis, London, Dubai, Cupertino, Brussels and various other cities with the next generation designs of Jony Ive ever since 2015.
