Hi All! Just thought I would share my findings with you all from my recent trip to Melbourne.
I think we bag the WA stores a little too harshly compared to what I saw in Melbourne. I went to the Elizabeth St store in the CBD (NextByte), the Flinders St store (MyMac) and the Bridge Rd store in Richmond (NextByte). The MyMac store was well laid out, in the current Apple look-of-the-week :-) They had a decent range of goodies and were presented well. The other two stores left a lot to be desired :-( Although one of them had only recently opened (Bridge Rd), they both had little stock and looked like a dogs breakfast. The Elizabeth St store is probably the closest to the shopping centre of the CBD (Bourke and Collins St), and only a stones throw from RMIT. The store had little third party stock and display, and a small range at that. The Bridge Rd store had the laptops underneath plastic enclosures, so there was no way you could play with them. And both stores had the classic 'desktop' screensaver running ;-) (just sitting idly on the desktop). All the while the staff were nowhere to be seen. All this from Australia's largest and most awarded Apple chain :-( I hope this is not a sign of things to come with AppleCentres across Australia. This is the time to really start hammering home how much better a Mac is, but if you can't buy anything else for your Mac, what is the point?? So we may bitch and moan about the AppleCentres here in Perth, but I think we have it better than you might like to believe. A couple of the AppleCentres here easily had twice the amount of stock (and range), have helpful staff and have presentable stores. Furthermore, there are a number of smaller guys that really go out of their way to make your Mac experience that much better. Now that I no longer work for an AppleCentre, it has been great just to sit back and look from a customer's perspective on buying an Apple. Knowing what supply problems the resellers also go through, I think we have it better than previously thought! I'd be interested to hear what other people think, especially those who have been over east (and sorry David Choy, I didn't get to check out Chadstone!) Seeya Rod! PS And no AppleCentre put me up to this :-)
