Apple Polishing in China

Store Design 101 says: The customer should never notice the store design.

If shoppers are focusing on the alluring graphics, the neat lighting treatment, the soothing color palette, the sleek finishes, they’re not focusing on the merchandise.

But, apparently, they notice anyway.

Over the weekend, a retailer in China was outed – by an American couple living in Yunnan Province – for creating fake Apple stores. All the elements were in place: the staircase, the upstairs lounging area, even the way the staff was dressed and tagged.

On their BirdAbroad blog, the couple said the stores were “so convincing that the employees themselves seemed to believe they worked for Apple.” In fact, when an Associated Press reporter called the store, the answer was “Apple store.”

“It had the classic Apple store [elements],” the American woman blogged, exhibiting extraordinary knowledge of Apple store design. But, she said, “some things were just not right. The stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly. Apple never writes ‘Apple Store’ on its signs – it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.”

So, three things:

One: Clearly shoppers do notice store design! It’s yet another Apple breakthrough. Why do Apple stores represent the most innovative retail branding, planning and design since NikeTown? Because they make a noticeable, demonstrable difference. People go to Apple stores because they are Apple stores.

Second thing: I’m of a generation that dismissed China as those monolithic, incomprehensible Communists. How, we wondered, could they ever make this socialism work, all wearing the same things and getting around by bicycle? Where was their desire to consume, to own, to self-express? What was Mao putting in the water? What chance did they have against us, with our endless fashion choices and ’60s muscle cars?

Bicycle? Or Pontiac GTO? You tell me who was going to rule the world!

Yes, much has changed. Our auto industry no longer has any muscle. While Chinese socialists have proved to be the most innovative capitalists currently on the planet.

In making the journey from People’s Cultural Revolution to 7 for All Mankind, China has revealed that owning things and being trendy are still powerful personal magnets.

So we may owe them all kinds of money. But they owe us their consumerism – and, yes, retailing concepts.

Third thing: Having said all that, it appears the Chinese are not yet getting store design, only imitating it. As retail designers driving consumers’ shopping journeys, the U.S. still rules the world.