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Sony Quietly Opening Retail Stores
as400tek writes "According to CNN, Sony
Electronics Inc. has been opening stores in selected cities all over the
US. Denver and Las Vegas are the next two location, or location numbers 11 &
12. Should the Apple retail model
be applied to Sony, and if so why didn't it work for Gateway?
Should Dell be next to enter you local shopping mall? Should large retailers like Best Buy and others be afraid of this model? Does this mean better service
for Sony's already nice line up of electronics?"
Their online stores have done very while. I am surprised that people shop online and pay retail prices when I am used to shopping online in order to get a discount. They have great brand recognition and people, by and large, believe Sony to be a high quality electronics provider. I think they have a good shot at being successful.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I live in Texas, most of the malls in my area (DFW) have Dell Kiosk things in them that are actually quite nice where you can demo several products and make orders if you decide to purchase.
in canada, sony has had stores for long time. there is one here in vancouver in a mall in the suburbs, not news (at least not to us).
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Oh, and no customers.
Clothing brands have own-label stores in outlet malls. There's been at least one Sony shop in Dublin, Ireland for probably about five years. This doesn't seem like news to me.
We have Sony Centres. As the name implies, they only stock Sony products. As far as I'm aware they are franchises and not directly operated by Sony. However, whenever a particular Sony line is in short supply, the Sony Centres never seem to suffer.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
We've had The Sony Store in Canada for more than a decade. In my town, there are at least three, with two of them on the same street.
They're all fairly small stores, the "no sports on TV" rule applies, the prices are competitive with the big boxes -- and often better once you count the gift cards they usually give you with any reasonably-sized purchase.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Up here in canada (a really small city named nanaimo, for the stalkers), there's been a Sony store for years. it's crappy/overpriced, so I'd never shop there, but it seems to be doing all right.
Gateway didn't succeed because you went to their store to configure and order a machine. You then waited several weeks or longer for it to arrive. When they had these in my area they did zilch. People could go to any number of stores and walk out with a computer and when people are ready to buy, most didn't want to drive to a store just to place an order. I think that towards the end they started keeping a few preconfigured machines in stock but not many. They also had an awful compensation plan for their sales people.
http://www.busyweather.com/
The times I've been inside a Sony store, it seems like everything is priced at retail.
I can get Sony stuff cheaper at the discount stores.
IIRC the Apple stores came out after Gateway's.
Also the gateway stores sucked major ass.
Apple stores are awesome.
I'm sure Sony's stores will be pretty good considering they're the only PC maker that can compete with Apple in terms of style.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
And that's a large part of it's "buy me" factor. Walking into a Sony store is much more draw dropping than your standard consumer electronics store and that experience probably leads to real money for them.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=07 08190e5433b4685281bee4883de114&postid=4460781&high light=qualia#post4460781
It looks like sony will initially only sell their new 70" 1080p rear projection tv through their qualia (sony's high brand division) stores.
epic
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
Plus, who shops at the mall with $1500, ready to buy a computer?
Sony may work because they sell lots of stuff that is cheap enough to inspire impulsive purchases. You go in, look at the neat gadgets, and the next thing you know, you whip out your credit card, and buy a $250 mp3 player.
A PC store is just not going to have the volume of sales in a mall setting to support it.
And it won't work for Sony. Both companies compete in the super-commoditized consumer electronics market. Neither of them have any real competitive advantage, other than Sony's fading brand name. Apple never tried to be the lowest cost provider; they have products that competitors either don't have or are not the same. The store model works for Apple because they compete on their own merits and people will go out of their way to buy Apple products. Granted, they are more expensive and often very proprietary, but they have a significant fan base. Sony and Gateway do not and will not have this advantage, therefore the only thing they will have to compete on will be features and price, just like every other electronics company. They will have a hard time keeping up with the massive flood of cheap consumer goods sold at Best Buy that are brought in by the boatload from Thailand and they will suffer miserably.
It didn't work for Gateway because Gateway was more like a "CompUSA" (a store I loathe) and Apple is more like a high-end boutique. I realize that both models have their place and can be effective, but Gateway's essentially selling commodity goods while Apple sells a whole "lifestyle." Visiting an Apple store is an experience in itself and has drawing power. Nike stores are similar in this way (at least the major one here in San Francisco).
We also have a major Sony presence here The Metreon and its own Sony Styles store (although as a poster above points out, it's not exactly perfect). and I think Sony will do it a lot more like Apple based on what I have seen (high end fixtures and architecture, high-drama).
This is a smart move for a brand like Sony--they need to recapture the caché they once had more of.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
Nobody buys a gateway because they really want a gateway.
But some people actively seek out sony products (i cant imagine why, but my brother has spent THOUSANDS on them, and lots more replacing them when they break). The same is true of apple. They are as close to "designer" brands as we have in electronics.
People do buy luxury watches, clothes, food items in store when they could get them cheaper online - it's more about the experience than the price.
We've had "Sony Stores" for years and years around my parts (Alberta & Saskatchewan).
They read over the sign, "The Sony Store", they are very swanky and very expensive. Usually in malls, but my home-town did have a stand-alone one about 5-10 years ago (I belive it closed eventually).
Things are usually priced above MSRP in them for some reason, perhaps to appease retailers who carry Sony products.
I think 2 malls have Sony sotres where I live. I've been in them, but never purchased anything at either as it's just so much cheaper to go somewhere else (I also don't like salesmen in suits with slicked hair trying to fast-talk me when I'm Sunday shopping - get enough of that during the work week thankyouverymuch).
This site says they have 70 stores in Canada.
..mork
I have visited the store a few times in the South Coast Plaza(CA.). In my opinion these stores really lack the "added value" that a branded Sony store should give. The Sony products, while very cool, don't lend themselves to the integration and "wow factor" that you get being in an Apple store and seeing cool features implemented. Also, the staff there is your basic run of the mill Circut City type employee (not particularly energized or informed).
There is not much difference in the presentation at the store vs. a nice consumer electronics shop and I don't feel like I am having a unique "Sony" experience by being in the Sony store because the products are not being presented in a new way.
While apple has a real motivation to open these botuiques (informed sales people and proper product presentation) I dont really see the long term breakout potential for Sony. They already have the benefit of ubiquity.
Having said that, its a great store to kill time in while your wife is shopping!
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
Dell is already in the shopping malls. From ifoAppleStore:
Dell Computer doesn't depend only upon its telephone and on-line sales: they have 81 kiosks within the hallways of shopping centers in 11 states. They're now running a billboard promotion with the tag line, "We're In The Mall."
Jeremy Logan's Website.
Gateway's products were all commodities w/Gateway badges on them. Why would anyone buy regular PC hardware from a specialty store?
When you buy a computer from the Apple Store, you do not buy a commodity item; you buy an "Apple." You get the style, the culture, the product line--iPod, iMac, iBook, PowerBook, Power Mac. Apple is somebody who sells a lifestyle, and that's what justifies an "Apple Store."
Alan
Having been to more than one Sony Style store I can say I'm pretty disappointed with them. Sony wants to have their own stores where it's wall to wall Sony products but doesn't want to make the stores somewhere you want to go to. There's very little difference between a Sony Style store and a Best Buy whereas there is a world of difference between an Apple section of a CompUSA and an Apple Store. If Sony could make some stores a little more enticing, similar to the Sony section of the Metreon, I think their stores would be far more attractive.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
They'll be the most expensive place to buy Sony products, only carry home electronics (no computers or parts), and be staffed by people who know all the buzzwords but have little idea what they mean.
There's one at South Coast Plaza (costa mesa, CA) and it's kind of cool to wander around and see all the gadgets. Once.
Since they only sell the one brand, there aren't a lot of new products to draw people in. Plus it's retail prices for everything so you'd never buy there, just look and go home and order online.
Comparing it to apple stores...
* apple has a genius bar staffed with people who can often fix your problem right there. sony had some sales vultures trying to sell me a plasma.
* apple has 3rd party software available for purchase
* apple stores (some of them) have a closeout/discount bin for cheapskate shoppers to check out
* apple's products are just better designed than sony
* everything in the store is compatible with everything else
* grassy knowl and start button on every monitor makes the sony store look a lot like best buy or compusa
Should large retailers like Best Buy and others be afraid of this model?
It's about market presence and Sony ego. They no longer dominate by superior engineering so they will try to dominate by glitter and youth/yuppie appeal.
At least that's this old geek's opinion. And I've been watching Sony for 30 years.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
There's a new one in the Stanford Shopping Mall in Palo Alto, which is a VAST difference from the Metreon store. It feels like it has a lot more focus with respect to the various product lines. When you walk in from the mall side, the left wall goes from portable audio to laptops to playstation. The center kiosks deal with camcorders and media and computer accessories, and the right side has desktops and entrances to two side rooms for home audio/video equipement, which feature major products, but not every single thing they sell, so it's easier to compare different models. The Metreon store sucks because they try to put every television into a simulated living room environment, which takes up a lot of space and makes it really hard for comparison.
I picked up a pair of V6 headphones (Thank you Sony for bringing them back!) there and everyone was nice and knowledgeable. According to one employee they've been open for about three months.
It's still Sony MSRP pricing which blows, but it's a much better store "style" (no pun intended) for showing off their products, in my opinion.
Plus, who shops at the mall with $1500, ready to buy a computer?
But yet Apple stores seem to be doing fine...
Yep.
At Circuit City, BestBuy, CompUSA, RadioShack, Computer STOP, Fred Meyer, Allstar Auto, and a smog check station near where I live where I had to get my car tested before getting it registered in CA.
In general, I've stopped going to stores for info. I have gotten to the point where I've researched what I want to buy to the extent that I know exactly what I'm looking for and I just need to find the best price to get it. On top of that, when a sales rep comes over and makes a comment like, "SuSe doesn't do as well as Windows, because...", or "32 bit processors, like Intels, are better than 64 bit processors, like AMDs, because the processor doesn't have to work with big numbers all the time. 64 decimal places is much bigger than 32 decimal places, and that's where the problem is."
Better yet was a mechanic trying to tell me that my Audi A4 didn't need its transmission fluid changed because "German cars are so well built that they don't need to have the transmission fluid changed." This was even after I pointed out the Audi Service Bulletin that described the mileage between changes and what transmission fluid to use!
In each case, I found that it was irritating, but kind of fun to call them on their lies. One guy even tried selling some RAMBUS RAM to me saying that they use genetically engineered silicon. I was like, WTF!? (I was looking for PC2100 RAM at the time.)
It was also especially fun if I made quite a bit of noise in the store about the salesperson lying.
I used to go there in HS to gaze on all the pretty electronics that I could not afford. It was really more of a showcase than anything else. I don't think I once saw anyone buy anything there.
They've had these stores for years, I first walked into on in Chicago back about 1992 and looked at most of what they had, because I was looking for a model of portable stereo only available in Europe and Japan (which internet dealers are only too happy to sell you, where once you were pretty denied, thanks to their bizarre marketing.) I don't know how much they sold, as they were usually a bit above what you'd pay at discount stores, but were placed in the fashionable downtown areas.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Australia has had Sony Central store for quite a while now.
http://www.sonycentral.com.au/
And probably the rest of the world. Only the US thinks this is new, sorry.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
At a Gateway store, you couldn't just buy a machine and take it home. Add to that, the fact that they just overbuilt like hell, and it's not too hard to see that they were doomed to failure.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well he wasn't lying to you technically speaking. 1. All sony music players will play MP3s once they have been converted using the included software. Yes it's time consuming and unnecessary but if you have an MP3 file then the MD/NetMD/Walkman will play it. 2. ATRAC3 gets a lot of flac for poor quality, and in the early stages it indeed sounded bad. It's reached version 4.5 now IIRC and sound tests show that a 64kbs Atract is indistinguishable from a 128kbs mp3 (of course we all use a higher bitrate I hope but that's the standard) 3. Atrac saves on batteries, it's not just marketing spin. I have a MD player (moving parts and all) and I can get upwards of 20 hours using one NiMH AA battery. I'm not expecting you to rush out and buy a MD, and while the software that comes with them is a pain, once the music is on the machine, they're hard to beat. Thanks
And I don't mean this to be a troll. Their computers suck, their web site is atrocious, they're absurdly overpriced, and they seem to coast by on their brand alone.
Every time I sit down to repair a VAIO it's a harrowing experience-- you have to have their specific installation CD's to really make it go anywhere near smoothly. While a normal XP installation will technically work, getting it correct is nigh on impossible. They do weird things like partition the hard drives into multiple, inexplicable partitions.
Then there's the website. It's awful. It's impossible to find the support section. The Knowledge Base is more like a Lack of Knowledge Base. The driver download process is cumbersome and it has a propensity for repeatedly kicking you into the Sony Online Store.
Then there's their hideous propensity to stick to random, proprietary "standards" of their own creation. They stick useless things (like the ThumbWheelXPPro2000) on every single device. They've been pushing Memory Stick for years and haven't really gotten anywhere with it. This is to say nothing of their insistence on using ATRAC as their audio format on all of their digital audio players (which they apparently have finally rescinded), or their stupid MiniDiscs, which somehow still survive in spite of their relative uselessness when compared to other solutions on the market.
They do have nice industrial design-- sometimes-- and a remarkable capability for shrinking things. But by and large their products are proprietary and waaaaaay overpriced, a combination that damns them in my book.
Gateway, on the other hand, had no such advantages.
No. Dell makes money through scale of economies and efficiency of operations. They make low profit margins on high volumes of products.
Retail stores are one of the least efficient operations, and don't do well with products with low profit margins, unless volume can somehow compensate. But computer stores generally have the problem with slow inventory turnover, due to the >$1000 average price barrier.
There are several other reasons why Dell shouldn't enter this market. Dell offers very dynamic pricing on its website - today, it might offer 15% off its Inspiron notebooks, and tomorrow that pricing might disappear. It much more difficult to attract customers to a store with seemingly random pricing.
Also, Dell is heavily into the market of selling peripherals. In fact, customize a computer on Dell's website, and you'll see the option to buy a printer before you see the option to configure the computer's memory.
Not at all. Best Buy competes through the resale of a wide variety of goods at competitive prices. Sony and Apple compete through the sale of a small variety of products at high prices.
Simple answer: No.
The major disadvantage of any "Sony" or "Panasonic" or "Tommy Hilfiger" branded store is that you're limited to just that store's brands. That automatically cuts down a lot on selection, and frankly, I could care less about shopping at a store that carried only Brand Z. Now, with Apple, it doesn't matter, because Apple lives in this isolated (shiny, glossy) Ivory (G5) Tower where by design, everything is Apple! Connect your Apple iPod to your iMac and listen to iTunes while chatting on iChat with your iSight etc. etc. etc. etc. This doesn't work as well for Sony and much less for brands that are not brands at all (frankly, I'm surprised Gateway is still even in business).
These brand stores have been around for a long time, just not for PCs. If anything, they work as sort of a Branding Litmus test. Note here: we're not talking about the brand, or the product, or the features, or the service, but The Brand(TM) in the classic business sense, that is, what does "Ford" or "Nike" or "Post Cereal" mean to somebody. If your Brand(TM) is exciting, then those stores will help bolster it, especially if your store is put in high profile, mass-market (but gaudily touristy) locales. Think of all the stores in Times Square. Suddenly, Toys 'R' Us, Sanrio, Cold Stone, etc. are all a bit more high-profile because now Grandma goes back to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska and tells the grandkids of this place she had ice cream in New York City and wow! was it neat etc. etc. And the truth is, many of these stores willingly refuse to profit on these locations, or, knowing that profitability is not likely, charge a huge amount on their goods to at least cut down on losses. So now the Hitachi store in New York City lost $150,000 last year but, hey, that's not bad considering it's a store IN NEW YORK CITY! and that's pretty exciting. Apple is doing something very similar. It started out in major markets, then hit secondary well-off markets (ritzy suburbs in Baltimore, Jersey, etc.). Now they're making their way into the local mall. Fashionable Brands like Sony, Apple, Alienware, Bose, Svarowski, etc. can do well in these. (Note, apparently in my example fashionable means "Overpriced"). Unfashionable brands like Gateway, Aiwa, Timex may not do as well.
So, no, I would not worry if I was Best Buy. If anything, Best Buy will now be helped by Sony stores, as people go into the Sony store, see the MSRP $4999 Wega XBR HDVDDHDHD-SACD Orgasmaplasmatron, are astounded, then are even more astounded when they see it at Best Buy for $3449 (plus you get a Day After Tomorrow DVD) and finally decide to go with Sony over JVC in their $400 TV purchase just because Sony opened up a store between The Gap and Starbucks at the mall.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I have worked at Fry's (They deal dirtier than Wal*Mart to their suppliers, employees, and customers.)
I am sure you have seen those advertisements that Fry's puts into your local paper.
Guess who pays for them. (Hint it is not Fry's Electronics, it is the manufacturers that were advertised within the first third of the page.)
In the San Jose and the SoCal area there is at least an 8-page Fry's Electronics "news section" once a week.
--
For the products you see "featured" on the endcaps or other high visibility areas, the manufacturers pay "rent" to Fry's for this "premium real estate" to the tune of US$5K/week/store (this was 1993!)
I have seen some vendors end up PAYING for the privelege of being porked by Fry's at the end of the promotion because the product did not sell on its own merits despite this preferred placement. (The "rent" completely engulfed the $sales expected by this promotion. The Fry's brothers learned this trick from their parent's grocery business.)
--
Also, Fry's is notorious milking their net terms with their suppliers and due to their size can "choose another vendor" if current supplier does not cater to their whims.
--
Their xxx days "same as cash" sales/financing is done by the manufacturer; Fry's gets this as "money in the bank" from the manufacturer when the merchandise leaves the store. On some products the vendor does not get paid until the item is sold.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
Sony have an advantage over Apple in that they can sell you a complete set of electronics (mumble digital lifestyle mumble buzzwordnonsense) that's all styled and behaves consistently. I've also noticed that Sony TV/VCR/DVD machines transparently integrate quite well already; As they and the other asian manufacturers put smart networking in these things Sony ought to be doing some pretty special things in these stores in years to come. ;)
They may well not, of course, but I like Sony, so I'm rooting for them to do it
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Sony and Apple are nothing like Gateway and Dell.
Sony and Apple are companies that sell products that include elegance and Quality.
Gateway thought people would be willing to buy computers in a barnyard, and Dell seems to think that because they started in a dorm room, that people would be willing to put up with stores that look like a Dorm room.
Here in Austin, Dell shut its Outlet store becuse people didn't want to buy computers in a flea market atmosphere.
Until companies understand that people will pay a premium for a product because of better design and quality, they can open all the stores that they want and they will ultimately fail. This is the 10th anniversary of the Dell.com website, and in the Austin paper it pointed out that Dell has an amazing amount of business through that website. Those are their customers, people who already know what they want or people that think that computers are a bit like cars, and since it has 4 tires, they really don't care about quality.
Gateway was just never going to be able to market the barnyard atmosphere anywhere but the midwest. I can see a Manhattanite using OSX, and with a Sony wall of components, but just can't see them waiting for the cow to arrive.
Here are some (large) pictures from Austria's first "Sony Center" in Innsbruck.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
We've had Sony Stores in Canada for a long time. I remember purchasing my first good discman there over 7 years ago as a teenager. They tend to be pricier than Walmart/FutureShop/BestBuy because Sony charges the strict MSRP so as to not compete with their web store. They also sell extended warranties but I have had a very good experience with them. They farm out the repair jobs to a local shop but they don't give you a hard time at all.
The one thing that sucks just like every other store, is that the clerks tend to not know what they're doing. You'd think in a Sony store the guy would know everything about Sony's products but really he's no better than the kid working at BestBuy for 7.50/hr. Last time I went there, the guy couldn't tell me the difference between the 100$ cd player and the 500$ cd player. Sorry fella, but I want to know about read errors, skew/jitter, seek time, digital outputs.. I mean the guy does nothing else all day might as well learn about the stuff he sells. But it's no worse than what you'll see in any megastore or even radio shack.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Please. Fry's is pulling in crazy dough. I don't think they're at all screwed by any manufacturer if their parking lot is full nearly EVERY DAMN NIGHT (yeah, that's sad that I can verify that. ;P ). Here's what I do:
1. Wait for the Friday Fry's ad.
2. If there's something that looks good, first check techbargains.com and pricegrabber.com for comparable items or better prices.
3. If I need to take a look at it, then regardless of price, I'll go to Fry's and take a look.
4. If Fry's is better, I'll stand in line like another geek sheep and get it. If not, just go home and get it online (works well if the rebate is a national one, not one that's just at Fry's).
P.S. one tip for all of you buying stuff from fry's; MAKE SURE YOU BUY SOMETHING THAT DOESNT EVEN REMOTELY LOOK RETURNED. Obviously look for the return tags (look on all sides of the box, as I found one time when it was on the bottom of the box of a bulky box), but I stay away from boxed items that they even have a little more scratches on them. If any seal looks played with, don't get it. You don't want to play the return game with Fry's if at all possible.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC