Comparison Essay Sample: Apple Store vs. Sony-Style Store

Apple store and Sony Store are two competing chains of retail stores owned and operated by multinational companies Apple Inc. and Sony respectively. Both stores deal in electronic products for consumer and professional markets. While one of the stores has been on a downward trend, the other has been aiming at the sky. This has been attributed to the differences in consumer experience on the two stores. Apple store has a better consumer experience when compared to Sony style store whose consumer experience is worse.

Apple stores host more than fifty million customers every three months, and according to Apple, half of the customers making challenges are always first timers (Kang & Yongtae 1044). Currently, there are 300 Apple stores worldwide, most of which are situated in the United States but are thriving in Major world capitals like Paris, London, and Shanghai. Everything about the store represents the experience of owning and using an Apple product. Apple stores control the whole experience from the limited range of products found on the shelves to training it offers customers on how to use Apple products which is reminiscent of museums.

Sonys mall store is large and long, about six thousand square feet with walls are filled with curvy panels and chirpy taglines. Also, the number of sales staff seems to outnumber customers. The PlayStation which has a separate and busy store in San Francisco has not changed in nearly six years. Changes at Apple store has been minimal, but they have been hugely successful when compared to the Sony Style. The fact that Sony Style stores have a questionable future implies that they do not know what they want to be as their fashion, consumer electronics and computers are associated with the brand name which is Sony. This is in contrast to the Apple Store where people can freely walk in, absorb the fumes and feel like the smartest technophile in the world. This is Mac experience in retail where Macs, iPods, OS X, iLife and Apple TV are smoothly integrated as the long wooden counters just like light walls and lightning (Blenko et al. 34). The sales reps are friendly too and can be found in whatever T-shirt is current. The success of Apples is displayed by the number of people visiting its stores. In a quarter a year, estimates show that about 21.5 million people visit its stores with store sales reported computed at approximately 855 million US dollars out of which more than two million US dollars are contributed as profits (Newman 223). In Sony Style stores, we find Clock Radios and in the center of it all Sony which is among the robot dogs and flat screen television stores. Sony has a display for clock radios which are not even cool.

Another fascinating thing about Apple stores that puts them above Sony Style store is how they treat their customers- they always put the customer first. Even though it sounds obvious that the interest of the customer is a primary concern for any company dealing in consumer products, it is absent in Sony Style stores as they tend to be technically oriented rather than being customer oriented.

Things like marketing and customer service can make or break a customers perception of a company. If a customer is provided with the right customer service, they are likely to perceive the company positively while the vice versa can lead to negative perception. Apples customer service which is ranked higher than Sony makes a big difference.

Works Cited

Kang, Daekook, and Yongtae Park. "Based Measurement of Customer Satisfaction in Mobile Service: Sentiment Analysis and VIKOR Approach." Expert Systems with Applications 41.4 (2014): 1041-1050.

Newman, Nic. "Apple iBeacon Technology Briefing." Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice vol. 15, no.3 2014, https://www.theidm.com/useful-content/journal/vol-15-no-3-mar-2014-/editorials-and-opinions/apple-ibeacon-technology-briefing

Blenko, David et al. Organizational Analysis: Apple Retail Stores. 1st ed., Malibu, Pepperdine University, 2016, http://daenaleemsod.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/617-Organizational-Analysis-Apple-12.2016.pdf.