New statistics reveal that Apple users are taking advantage of the company’s Genius Bar support, as more than 50,000 customers were reported to have been utilizing the retail feature each day. The company also revealed that its stores have seen nearly 300 million worldwide visitors so far in its fiscal 2012 year, which began in October of 2011. The details were all shared by Apple as the Cupertino California company opened two new retail stores over the weekend in Canada (one in Halifax, Nova Scotia and another in Coquitlam, British Columbia).
Given the success that Apple’s retails stores have seen, the company has been experimenting with larger Genius Bars that can service more customers. To do this, the company has been rotating Genius Bars by 90 degrees so that they are perpendicular to the rear wall of the store, rather than up against the back wall where they have been traditionally positioned. These new Genius Bars also emphasize the use of iPads to help manage customer service records. The changes with the Genius Bar were also one of the key features that Apple added in the recently reopened Apple retail store in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood.
Aside from the Genius Bar, the Cupertino California company is also looking to make the stores they own larger to help accommodate more customers. One of the profiles issue earlier this year found that Apple’s stores were “bulging at the seams” with an average square footage of just 8,400 square feet. When the company’s retail operations began 11 years ago, the company initially targeted 6,000 square-foot stores as the ideal size according to Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company. The stores have since grown and currently are unable to accommodate an average annual increase of 15.3% visitors on a per-store basis.
Source: The Loop
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