Apple's (AAPL) first store-in-store in mainland China has been unveiled at the Best Buy store in Shanghai's Xuhui area.
By opening this store-in-store for Apple, Best Buy is intending to consolidate its position in the middle and high-end market of China and adopt a different operation pattern from Chinese domestic electronic appliance retailers. Best Buy recently shuttered its procurement office in Beijing and is facing fierce market competition from stalwart rivals Gome, Suning, and Yongle.
Zeng Yaozu, marketing director of Best Buy, said that Best Buy Xuhui Store is the retail dealer that sold the most Apple products in China in 2007, and that's why Apple has decided to upgrade the cooperation with Best Buy and open this store-in-store.
The new store is known to be the only Apple Store-in-Store in mainland China. Occupying a total area of about 50 square meters, it displays more than 60 kinds of Apple computers and Apple brand accessories. Apple will send two technical consultants to the store to provide sales support for it.
Apple is also planning to soon open its own stores in China in Beijing. It has said that one store will be located in the city's Sanlitun area and the other will be in the Qianmen area.
Yay! Apple Store are in China!! Too bad I dont live there!
That's good news for me personally, being very close to Shanghai. But I'm still surprised that Shanghai is not – apparently – deserving of a flagship store right now. Go to a Starbucks in Shanghai and you'll likely see Mac laptops outnumbering all others combined, so there's a big market in the city.
Yeah!!
The Best Buy store is just 10 minutes away from here =)
God I love living in Shanghai!
YaaaaY~
To be honest, I'd rather have decent Apple support here, than yet another Apple store.
Its not like there aren't at *least* 2 or 3 apple stores in the computer malls right around the corner from Best Buy.
When Apple actually puts some effort into China, let me know.
Servicing an Apple in China is often a nightmare.
Technicians don't know much and training appears obsolete.
I'm interested to know of good places in Beijing to take my PowerBook when it fails because the place at ChaoYang Lu hasn't given me good service in the past.
There is a mac user group in Beijing but though they are cool to visit with they don't have much expertise on hardware.
I agree with Lawrence here. The Apple support in Shanghai is terrible, and when I got my MacBook Pro back after my logic board failed and got repaired, there were scratches all over the top and bottom case.
The 'authorized' service providers here are incompetent, and can only speak Chinese, and very limited English. I've been to the Best Buy Apple Store and it is very small. There were no fluent English speaking people there.
I really hope that after the Beijing Apple Store is completed (which it already is), Apple will choose Shanghai (Pudong) for its next China project.
heY GUYS, I want to buy MacBook and also iPads in Shanghai. Who knows where i can buy them for a low price?)
Thank's=)