EightBlack.

I was sitting in a Sydney hotel yesterday, quietly minding my own business when I couldn’t help but over hear the conversations of the 2 Americans sitting beside me.

Turns out that the 2 guys were here fitting out the new Apple store - which is due to open any minute.

My colleague and I were fascinated with the story that unfolded.

Apple handles the fit out personally of each and every store. This means that they use their own firm to supply the architectural woodwork. This is a proud, 100 year-old company called Fetzer, based out of Salt Lake City. They make all the interior fitout, pack it into containers and ship it to where-ever they are building a new store.

More importantly, a contractor from Fetzer goes with the container and supervises the whole installation. This guy, from Ohio, has been in Sydney for 5 weeks. Shacked up at the Hilton no less.

His buddy, who handles all the electrical contracting, including cabling, telephony etc does the same thing. This poor bastard spent 48 weeks out of 52 last year on the road - simply fitting out Apple stores worldwide.

Its this attention to detail that makes Apple Apple. No one else would go to this trouble. Well, precious few.

I asked the guy from Fetzer whether or not the Aussies were good tradies. He actually said they were. He might have been polite. (apart from the fact that because he’s in Sydney, some half wit contractor tried to convince him that Rugby League or Union or whatever the hell they call that bum sniffing crap they play was actually a sport).

He then got warmed up and starting talking about how crazy the Italians were to work with, how precise and exact the Japanese were and how average the Brits were (which surprised me, given that you can walk into a pub in outer London that’s been standing in the same spot for 800 years). Or something like that.

When you get the chance, if you haven’t done so already, walk into an Apple store. Notice the quality of the fixtures and fittings (ie Fetzer). See if you can see exposed wires at all. Anywhere. Look at the quality of the flooring. The image above by the way is of Apples New York store, which recently opened.

If Apple have done their job right (and they have), you actually wont notice much at all. Because the whole show has been built around showing off the Apple product. Nothing else.

Ok, ok, I’m biased. But you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. And there’s a reason why Apple absolutely blitz their competition when it comes to revenue per square foot.

The Sydney store, when it opens, will be a cracker. Mark my words.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.