» Sorry, Steve: Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work

Bloomberg Businessweek quoting Channel Marketing Corp. president David A. Goldstein in May of 2001.

“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake,” says Goldstein.

Horace Dediu yesterday:

Apple Stores have seventeen times better performance than the average retailer

In mock fairness to Goldstein, it was not an uncommon thought back in 2001 that Apple was making a huge mistake, but that thought ignored two things. First, with no leverage with resellers, Apple needed to take control of how retail customers saw its products. It pretty much had to make this move or continue to see its products stuck in the back of CompUSA in between the Peripherals of the Damned. Second, Ron Johnson is a stone cold killer retail experience-designing machine.

It was pretty conventional to bet against Apple back in 2001. And, based on the previous 10 years, it was a decent bet. What amazes me is that people are still doing it without consideration. Sure, Apple may screw something big up in the near term, but the odds of that happening are pretty slim.