Sales Promotion and Personal Selling



Relationship selling or Consultive selling is one of the most important methods for Apple in the selling process. When you buy an Apple product, you will constantly recieve emails regarding your pruduct, and new updates for it, and how your Apple product has been performing. Apple also makes sure that they are giving their consumers the best product they can give. By doing this Apple is building a relationship with the consumer, which leads to loyal customers and once the new model or a new product from Apple comes out these loyal customers are more likely to by their new products. For Apple in a business point of view building loyal customers and using the Relationship selling process also is a cheaper way for them, because it will cost them more to make a new customer then to retain a current consumer. One reason would be advertising, as we rea in the previous chapter, advertising its not a cheap cost, and when you retain a customer they already know your product, and you don't have to advertise it too much to a current consumer.

Apple promotes their products by showing it to you, and let you use it. This is one of the reasons apple has the famous "Apple Stores" worldwide. Apple does not give coupons, or any type of discount, but they do offer rebates when you purchase a Mac; rither on a printer or an IPod Touch.  Because of their good reputation, and great sales, they would not be in a position for discounts.

There is an simple way to demonstrate how Apple retains their customers and has loyal customers; everytime there is a new Apple products, you have customers waiting hours before the launch of the product, to be the first one's to have it.



Advertising and Public Relations



Apple uses different methods for advertising, one of the methods would be comparative advertising. Apple often compares there products with their competitors, and we have seen an example of it, which is the commercial when Apple compares their Mac to Microsoft's PC. We notice in these commercials how everytime PC makes a comment about their product, Mac always has a better improvement. In other of these commercials, Mac asks questions to PC on how their new product is better than their old ones and if they have fixed their issues, (like we all know these issues are viruses). These type of commercials, gives the consumer the idea of Mac being a better product and I do believe that these commercials also help consumers thinking of getting a Mac, make up their minds.

Apple's advertising is so persuasive, that consumers not familiar with technology calls every mp3 players IPod, every touch screen phone IPhone, and if its a powerful computer, they will think that is a Mac.

I noticed that almost every advertisement for Apple are to promote their new item, and this method is called pioneering advertising, and it made come to a conclusion; Apple products don't need too much advertisement because they already developed their target market, and they just have to advertise to inform their consumers about their new products. By this last sentence, I learned that Apple has an understanding of advertising response function.

Chapter 15 - Retailing

I visited the new Apple Store in 68th and Broadway. My information is from one of the store manager of this location, and also from Apple Media Helpline; where journalists could get information about Apple, provided by the manager of the previous location mentioned.

Apple has different strategies for their store locations. I visited the Apple store in 68^th and Broadway, and one of the managers explained to me the reason of the opening of this new Apple store. Apple has 2 locations in Manhattan; in the east side they have the apple store of 59 and 5^th av. Which covers all upper and mid east side residents, and all the tourists that come to New York always explore 5^th av. making them one of the most visited Apple store worldwide. They also have stores downtown; The Village, Union Square and Soho. In the upper or mid west side there weren’t locations of an Apple store, and they have a big target market in this area. Apple’s concern wasn’t only on the sales of their products, but also because of their genius bar, which is like their technical support and tutoring center for Apple products. These Westside residents when they had an appointment with the genius bar was a hassle, they had to go all the way downtown or to 5^th av. Because 5^th av was a nearer location, Westside customers went to this location, but there was sometimes a big issue with this location, due to the following reason. Apple store in 5^th av is a 24hr store, and due to the big volume of appointments, some of these customers were scheduled for 12 am all the way to 5am. But now that there is a location in 68^th and Broadway, west side residents won’t have to lose time going to a further Apple store, or stay up late at night for an appointment. Even though this location is opened from 9am to 9pm every day. In suburbs area or in a lower volume city, Apple stores are usually located in Plazas or in the local mall. International Apple stores can be found in Major Countries, in their major city and main av.

Online retailing is a main point of sale for apple for various reasons. If you want a Mac or a Mac book customized with more features for extra performance, you will only be able to do it online. To promote more their online retailing, they offer some cool features, one of them is a personal message engraved on your new IPod for no extra charge. One of the most important points of sale for Apple’s online retailing is to pre-order new Apple products, without having to wait in a long line. Also if this new item goes out of stock, you could place an order, and it will be shipped to you once it is back in stock, without having to worry if the store still have it in stock by the time you get there. By online retailing, it is also a faster way to learn about Apple’s products.

MSRP: Apple did not gave me too much information about why Apple products never goes on sale or lower their price, they just told me that Apple products always has a high point of sale in all their products lately and that their products you get from Apple, you pay for the great quality of it. In terms of Apple products having a higher price than some of their competitors, I heard different responses for their different products. One of them was the Mac book, staring at $999.99, compared with the same specifications of a PC for $599 to $699. But at the long run you will pay more for a PC. In a PC, you have to buy an antivirus each year and a good antivirus range from $49.99 to $69.99. PC’s also tend to get damaged and have more issues than a Mac, and the cost for a diagnostic is staring at $70 dollars, without the cost of parts and labor. Most importantly is also proven that a Mac with a 1.6 GHz processor and 2 GB ram would run the same as a PC with 2.6 GHz processor and 4 GB ram and a PC with those specs will come out for the same price of a Mac or more, depending on the manufacturer.

According to one of the managers of the Apple store in 68^th and Broadway, the atmosphere in Apple stores are setup for customers to feel that they are in a place to explore new things and make sure that their experience was fun and feel like they never want to leave. The manager also said that a lot of customers describe the store as a cyber café or a toys r us for all ages. I totally agree! Every apple product is setup in a light wooden table, large enough for the customers to play with the product, and fit a decent amount of that same product to avoid waiting. Apple stores are easy to identify, all their stores have a front glass display with a big bitten apple in the middle light wooden tables for their products, and it is a fun environment.

Customer service was great. The moment I entered the store I was greeted, and asked if I needed help. They have big staffs which are very knowledgeable and helpful. I would qualify Apple retail experience as a high customer service retailer.

Chapter 6 - Consumer Decision Making

▪ After Apple announced the release date of its iPhone in June 2007, consumer traffic to theiPhone 8GB product page dramatically increased by 1,900 percent by the end of December2007, while traffic for the iPhone 4GB initially increased only slightly before Applediscontinued the lower capacity device in early September 2007.
▪ Of the 54 percent of respondents who indicated that they do not plan to purchase an iPhone,41 percent indicated their primary reason was that the iPhone is too expensive and 22percent indicated that they didn’t want to switch to AT&T as their carrier. 
▪ Of the 46 percent of consumers who either own or are considering purchasing an iPhone, 35percent indicated that the fingertip navigation (zooming, scrolling, etc.) is the best feature ofthe iPhone.
▪ Bluetooth and hands-free headsets are becoming a required accessory with cell phones suchas the iPhone. With the new driving laws impending, 62 percent of online consumersindicated that they currently use or plan to purchase a hands-free headset. 
▪ Of the top 20 most popular cell phones on PriceGrabber.com, 19 have MP3 playbackcapabilities. Forty-two percent either are not aware of or do not have the MP3 playercapability on their cell phone. Only 11 percent of respondents use their cell phone as theirprimary MP3 player and 18 percent of respondents use it on occasion.
▪ Prior to the iPhone 3G announcement made by Steve Jobs, president of Apple, a total of 38percent of online respondents indicated that they plan to purchase the iPhone 3G, while 62percent indicated they don’t plan to.  

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR REPORT 2008  The iPhone has changed the way consumers think about cell phones and smartphones. Apple has consumers waiting in anticipation for the July 11 release of the second generation 3G iPhone and iPhone 2.0software, nearly one year after the iPhone was introduced on June 29, 2007. The iPhone isundoubtedly the most talked about mobile device in the market. 
▪ Apple keeps consumers interested in the iPhone. After Apple announced the release dateof its iPhone in June 2007, consumer traffic to the iPhone 8GB product page dramaticallyincreased by 1,900 percent by the end of December 2007, while traffic for the iPhone 4GBinitially increased only slightly before Apple dropped its price to $299 and discontinued thelower capacity device in early September 2007. 
 ▪ In a survey of 3,066 online respondents conducted between May 20 and June 5, only 20percent of consumers own an iPhone or smartphone, while the majority of respondents own astandard cell phone. However, 42 percent of respondents indicated that they are consideringpurchasing an iPhone and four percent indicated that they own an iPhone. Apple, whichrecently announced the 3G iPhone, has the opportunity and the challenge to win over the 54percent of consumers who indicated that they do not intend to purchase the iPhone.

Week 5- Developing a Global Vision

 

Booming sales of the iPhone across the world helped Apple to post quarterly results that breezed past expectations and sent its shares up 6 per cent to $254, an all-time high.

Revenue rose almost 50 per cent on the same quarter last year while profits were up 90 per cent.

The results for the three months to the end of March do not include iPad sales, which are expected to add another $1 billion (£654m) of revenue.

Sales of the iPhone were up 131 per cent on the same period last year, boosted by making the touch screen handset available in new markets, including China, and by the addition of new network operators including Vodafone in the UK.

Overall, the company reported net income of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 a share, up from $1.62 billion or $1.79 a share a year ago. Revenue was $13.5 billion compared to $9.08 billion.

Apple continued its strong run with sales of 2.94 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a 33 per cent increase, despite strong sales of rival PCs boosted by the release of Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system. Apple also sold 10.89 million iPods during the quarter, a fall of only 1 per cent from last year in an almost saturated market.

Steve Jobs, the chief executive, said: “We have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

Apple's share of worldwide Smartphone sales grew from 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009. In terms of unit sales, Apple jumped from 1.7 million in the first quarter of 2008 to 3.9 million during the same period in 2009.

This also is making apple invest more on worldwide company also given by the result of the ipad having great success in almost every continent.