Apple preparing overhaul of its online store
Apple has begun signaling to education shoppers that it plans to relaunch and overhaul its online store in the near future, making it easier to do business. — AppleInsider was alerted on Wednesday to the notice that can be found on the top …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's retail machine has been rebuilt in waves: the company launched an online outlet alongside MacBook Pro updates back in June 2007, reorganized its physical store floorplan in early 2009, and extended full build-to-order Mac customization into the Apple Store iOS app in May 2011. Each pass moved more of the buying experience onto Apple-controlled channels.
The notice now showing at the top of the education storefront signals the next wave: a relaunch of the web store aimed at making it easier to do business. That eight outlets from App Advice to VentureBeat picked up the same tip on April 4, 2012 shows how closely watchers treat any change to Apple's direct-sales plumbing — especially with confirmed reports of doubled customer traffic in some retail stores straining the brick-and-mortar side of the operation.
First-order effects
- Education buyers — school IT departments and institutional purchasers — are the first audience told to expect a different checkout flow, since the banner sits on the education storefront they use for volume Mac and iPad purchases.
- Apple's web team takes on a live migration: whatever ships in the relaunch has to absorb existing education quoting and ordering behavior without breaking institutional accounts mid-purchase-cycle.
Second-order effects
- As the direct web store gets easier to use, it competes harder with Apple's own retail locations for orders that previously required a store visit — relevant when confirmed traffic doubling already has the company pressuring retail employees.
- Third-party education resellers, whose value rests on friction in Apple's direct channel, face a narrower pitch if the overhauled storefront handles institutional purchasing natively.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern from the 2007 outlet launch, the 2009 floorplan reorganization, and the 2011 iOS app expansion holds, each redesign consolidates more of Apple's sales volume into first-party channels — shrinking the intermediary layer between Apple and its buyers.
- A smoother education storefront positions Apple's web commerce as procurement infrastructure for schools, where ease of bulk buying increasingly decides which vendor wins classroom device deployments.
The trend: Apple keeps folding its sales channels inward — physical stores, the iOS Store app, and now the web storefront — so that every redesign tightens direct control over how customers, including institutions, buy.