NEW TACTIC BY APPLE WATCH, PROMOTED AS A LUXURY GOOD

APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM – Apple has scrapped its usual routine for releasing products with its new device, the Apple Watch. The company is instead taking a page from the playbook of another industry: luxury goods makers.

Gone are the long lines in front of Apple stores that would accompany a typical iPhone release. Gone is the flooding of a vast worldwide distribution network where Apple would make a new iPhone available. The company is selling the Apple Watch, which goes on sale on Friday, in just nine countries and exclusively through its own channels, not through third-party retailers like Best Buy. In contrast, Apple unveiled new iPhones in September in more than 30 countries and in numerous retail outlets.

APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

For the first time, Apple is also bringing personal attention and tailoring into the mix through a process for trying on the watch. While consumers typically couldn’t touch a new Apple device until it was publicly available, the company this month began inviting customers into its stores to see, wear and feel the watch.

Evan Weissbrot, a 33-year-old watch collector, experienced the sneak preview firsthand. After he arrived at the Apple Store in SoHo on April 11, an Apple employee took Mr. Weissbrot to a station and unlocked a drawer containing a variety of the watches. In between small talk, the employee showed Mr. Weissbrot different straps and cases – and even let him check out the gold watch, which costs more than $10,000 and typically requires a separate appointment to try on. APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

Mr Weissbrot said,

The amount of personal attention and the allure of the process “was a rip directly from a high-end watch store”.

All of this echoes the tactics of luxury goods makers like Burberry and Hermès. Giving consumers an early peek before they buy things is a familiar strategy in the fashion industry — as, increasingly, is tempting early adopters with the bonus of circumventing the shop. When Burberry shows new lines of clothing and handbags on the runway, the company lets customers order select items immediately after the show for delivery even before the products arrive in stores. APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM.

Apple also appears to be mimicking the scarcity-creates-desire approach, one that has served Hermès well with items like the Birkin and Kelly bags. They are rarely in stock, and customers sometimes wait months to receive one. That strategy has also worked for companies like Ferrari, which has loyal customers who pay thousands of dollars just to get on a list to wait as long as a year to own the next hot Italian sports car.

Milton Pedraza, Chief Executive of the Research firm the Luxury Institute said of Apple,

They’re definitely treading on new territory, while high-end fashion brands, jewelers and luxury car brands often use selectivity and personal attention to generate interest when a product makes its debut, it is new for Apple, a company whose products typically speak to an enormous consumer audience as opposed to a privileged few.APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

The strategy is a deliberate move by Tim Cook, Chief Executive of Apple, and Angela Ahrendts, the company’s retail chief and a former chief executive of Burberry, to lay the groundwork for a successful introduction of the watch. (APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM) The watch is the first entirely new device Apple has introduced under the leadership of Mr Cook, who took the helm in 2011, and brings the company into the fashion market, as well as the luxury market, with the 18-karat gold version of the watch.

Tell me, what do you think of Apple watch Luxury item? Just wanna know your opinion.

In a recent letter to Apple’s retail employees, Ms. Ahrendts said the company needed to come up with the preview approach for selling the watch because “there’s never been anything quite like it.” In the memo, which was cited by the blog 9to5Mac, she said it was unlikely that people could buy the watch at Apple stores before June because of supply constraints.

APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

An Apple spokeswoman, Amy Bessette, said Ms. Ahrendts was not available to comment on the retail strategy for the watch.

Apple’s top brass has been energetically promoting the watch over the last seven months, granting interviews about the creation of the device to The New Yorker and Wired. Apple has also invested significantly in advertising, spending an estimated $36 million since March 9 on a television campaign for the smartwatch, just slightly less than the $38.5 million that it spent on TV ads for new iPhones since mid-November, according to iSpot.TV, an analytic firm.

The watch’s success remains far from assured. Mr. Cook said on Apple’s financial earnings call in October that the company would report sales of the watch in a group with other products, rather than breaking it out into a separate category. APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

I’m not very anxious in reporting a lot of numbers on Apple Watch and giving a lot of detail on it, because our competitors are looking for it.

Sales estimates for the watch are modest compared with Apple’s past best sellers. Toni Sacconaghi, a financial analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein, predicts Apple will ship 7.5 million watches in the second half of the company’s fiscal year, while tens of millions of iPhones fly off the shelves every quarter. APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

For now, Apple’s luxury experiment with the Apple Watch appears to be bringing in mixed results. At Apple’s London flagship store nine days ago, employees asked people if they wanted to sign up for personal appointments to get hands-on with the product. Several people were bemused that they could not handle the watches without appointments.

APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM

At an Apple store in Hong Kong, a Chinese tourist from Beijing, Scott Sun, took photos of the gold watches to send to his friends but said every version of the watch – which starts at $350 – was too expensive for him. He said,

There’s no way I’m going to buy one, but for rich people, this gold one will definitely be popular.”

Another question raised by Apple’s luxury experiment with the watch is whether customers will believe it is worth the wait. While the watch will begin shipping to customers on Friday, some customers have reported that their shipping times have slipped to May or June.

APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM – For Mr. Weissbrot, the watch collector in SoHo, the wait was not a deterrent. He placed an online order for an Apple Watch Sport, which is the least expensive model and has an aluminum case, before the session in which he tried one on. The estimated date of arrival for his watch is May 13. Before adding that he was still excited to be among the first to have the device, he said,

It’s kind of a bummer.

The APPLE WATCH LUXURY ITEM? Of course, that is what it is being made to be so bring out your wads of cash and go get yours.

(Credit to BRIAN X. CHEN)

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