Remember the Apple Watch Edition? We're talking about the Apple Watch whose price was reduced from $15,000 to $13,898 at Best Buy, the Apple Watch that few consumers are flocking toward. That's the watch at the heart of this post. The latest news regarding the Apple Watch that costs as much as your car is that Apple is closing down the Galeries Lafayette pop-up shop in France due to poor sales of the luxury smartwatch in January 2017.
Apple decided to take something of a luxury approach to the Apple Watch back in 2015 when it launched the luxury popup stores, with rumors swirling that Jony Ive was the brains behind the move to create one of the most expensive smartwatches on the market yet (even more expensive than the $1,500 TAG Heuer Connected Carrera). Many disagreed with his idea but the company went along with it -- even going so far as to place Apple Watches in "glass cases" in order to protect them. The idea was to use Paris runway models and other such sources as a means of winning over the more wealthy among us and show that the Apple Watch could cater to wealthy interests.
Apparently, Apple's new direction with the Apple Watch 2 shows that the fruit company now wants to win over average consumers who will keep spending money each year (as opposed to the wealthy who expect to buy one watch for so many years; luxury watch brands can be kept for over 10 years, for example, while still retaining their value). Apple has an emphasis on health and fitness, which is a trending consumer focus on wearables.
Unfortunately, the Apple Watch Edition with its $10,000+ price tag hasn't done that, so Apple sees no reason to retain the popup stores for it. While Galeries Lafayette is the first popup store to disappear, we've been told that Apple has been relocating staff from this and other popup stores and that more may disappear over the next few months. Selfridges (London) and Isetan (Tokyo) are two similar pop-up stores to Galeries Lafayette; whether or not these boutiques will close is still undecided.
Do you think this is a wise idea for Apple? Would you be willing to pick up the Apple Watch Edition if the price were significantly dropped down to, say, $1500 -- or are you content with the Apple Watch Sport and the intermediate Apple Watch?
