ON SONY ADDING APPLE STORE FEATURE

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

In a post this May, I'd cited four subtle reasons why Apple's has had such unexpected success with their 145 and counting "Apple Stores" to date.  Number one was:

"1.  All the computers in the store are connected to the internet via broadband."

Well, Sony, who so far has 35 SonyStyle stores in various malls around the country, has apparently picked up on this one.

I can report anecdotally, that the SonyStyle store in South Coast Mall in Southern California, has now added free Wi-fi based internet access in it's stores as of a couple of days ago.  I'm not sure if it's now a "feature" in ALL the SonyStyle stores though.

Why did I think this was a "big deal" for Apple?  Well, as I said in the May post:

" ...because it encourages folks to come in for reasons other than the products.  It's almost like an Internet Cafe without the coffee.  You can go in, check your email, check out some info online, and as you're passing through the aisles of cool products, check out some Apple products.

The connections are also important for another reason.  It allows customers not just to try out the products themselves, but also look up information on the hardware and software online, both on Apple's website, and third-party reviews."

Well, now one can do the same in a SonyStyle store (for more on Sony's latest distribution strategy, see this earlier post).

They do need to figure out how to optimize the Wi-fi to their benefit though. 

In an Apple store, whenever you launch a browser on any desktop or laptop computer, up comes the Apple store web-site.

In the Sony store, launching a browser, gets you...the AOL home page!

To make sure this was not the result of some shoppers switching home pages, I checked several machines.  Nope, AOL came up on every machine.

Maybe it's a deal between the two companies I'm not aware of...or maybe some AOL fan just switched the home page on every Sony machine in the place that day.

But overall, it's a good first step in a Sony store.

Comments

[Christian Cadeo]

I can vouch for this as the Sony store by my house in Los Angeles launches AOL as well. Very strange.

[Zsa Zsa Galore]

Does AOL have fans anymore?

[Ana]

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