Visiting Apple’s Company Store
Text and photographs by JANE VARNER MALHOTRA
The Apple Company Store at its headquarters in Cupertino, California is the only place that sells its branded accessories.
Ten years ago, Apple, Inc. opened its first retail stores in the United States, revolutionizing the way computers are sold. Today, these shimmering spaces offer “Genius Bars” staffed by Apple technology pros, and sleek chrome storefronts with floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase the latest trendy iPod colors like designer shoes on display in New York City. Stores offer classes in photo or music management, one-on-one Web site development training sessions, and rows upon rows of iPads, laptops and iPhones for customers to check out. Even little customers have a place to sit, with touchscreen technology literally at their tiny fingertips.
But before the retail stores, now numbering over 300, opened across the United States and eventually around the world, the company headquarters in Cupertino, California housed a small shop where Mac fans in the know would flock in a kind of pilgrimage to purchase Apple-branded merchandise. Known as The Apple Company Store, the shop remains the only place where you can buy an official T-shirt with the revered Apple logo on it. And business is flourishing.
The store is open to the public and certainly not a secret, although many people don’t know about its existence, tucked in the Apple office park at the off ramp of a major highway. The address, once likely an orchard but now bearing fruit of another kind, is 1 Infinite Loop. Basic information about the store can be found on the company’s Web site, yet somehow the store manages to keep a low profile among mainstream Apple customers.
All around the corporate campus, friendly, casually-dressed Apple employees and guests stroll along sidewalks between four-story buildings, many in black T-shirts and flip flops with laptops tucked casually under their arms like the morning newspaper. A certain confidence permeates the air, as young and old—but somehow all hip-looking—people laugh and chat softly about the latest hush-hush projects and products. In front of the store, a busload of tourists hop off and head straight for the shop.
Inside, customers calmly browse among products like Apple-logo pastel onesies for baby geeks. Computers are not sold at this store, and there is no computer support service offered, but turn to any of the other customers, or perhaps even a friendly salesperson, and you might get a recommendation on the latest must-have app. The store does sell software and an impressive variety of accessories, such as headphones and phone or iPad cases in a rainbow of colors.
Adult clothing includes sweatshirts, baseball caps, dress shirts and T-shirts printed simply with the logo, or with a minimalist classic Apple slogan saying, “Designed by Apple in California.” One of the most popular is an adult-sized, black T-shirt with a white Apple logo on the back, and white lettering on the front that states, “I visited the Apple campus. But that’s all I’m allowed to say.” Many customers and employees shopping in the store have a good laugh over this one, which reveals a lot about Apple’s corporate culture: at once cutting edge and secretive but also able to poke fun at itself.
The T-shirt doesn’t lie. As many visitors inside the corporate compound can affirm—it’s no secret that the company’s image is carefully managed. In fact, Apple was recently named the most valuable global brand in the world, according to a study released by Millward Brown, surpassing Google, IBM and McDonald’s. At The Company Store in Cupertino, employees are not allowed to speak to the press. In mainstream news, even interviews with former CEO Steve Jobs were few and far between. However, for the individual consumer, the robust retail operation around the world in bricks and mortar offers Apple the unique opportunity to touch the customer and vice versa, with face-to-face interactions available in 15-minute appointments or through the many classes offered at Apple’s outlets.
In the meantime, enthusiastic fans flocking to the store at Cupertino wait patiently in line to purchase Apple attire. As a group of three customers steps up to the cashier—a middle-aged woman accompanied by two young men—they are all smiles. As she sets her purchases in a pile on the counter, the woman announces in a French accent, “We just arrived from Paris, and of course, we came straight here from the airport.”
Jane Varner Malhotra is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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