The Apple department in select Best Buy stores is bad for Apple and even bad for Best Buy. Staffing, shelving and the overall retail experience is just bad. Plus, Best Buy can not be adding to their balance sheet with Apple computers.

In 2008, Best Buy added an Apple department to select stores across the US. In communities that are not served by an official Apple retail store, Best Buy is supposed to be the next best thing outside of small independent Apple dealers. For those communities, the Apple department at Best Buy gives consumers a chance to experience Apple hardware - an experience, but not a good one.

Apple retail stores are very bright and high energy. Generally, the staff are well trained and highly motivated. Consumers and staff share enthusiasm for the brand and the shopping experience. For newcomers, Apple retail stores offer training sessions. Overall, the shopping experience at an Apple retail store is quite good.

However, over at Best Buy, staff are generally poorly trained, especially with regards to Apple hardware, and will often acknowledge their ignorance to customers. Staff tend to congregate, mingle, and hang out in the much larger non-Apple computer area where all computers are displayed at a height commensurate with standing customers. Back in the Apple department, Apple computers are relegated to very low tables with no chairs. What consumer wants to spend a long time bending down really really low, to look at an unfamiliar computer, in a department with no staff?

Best Buy sells washers, dryers, televisions, microwaves and DVDs. Best Buy’s strengths have always been selection, pricing, and occasionally, private labeling. Unfortunately, none of these strengths really benefit Apple or consumers looking for Apple computers.

The typical consumer, especially those without significant Mac experience, will arrive at Best Buy and immediately be bombarded by blue-shirted staff who make it their mission to hawk less-expensive PCs and notebooks running various versions of Microsoft Windows. Although Microsoft is planning to open its own stores, I think they already have - they’re called Best Buy. Plus, don’t forget about the Best Buy extended warranty. That is the Best Buy staffer’s bread and butter.

Profit margins on computer hardware are very narrow. In the case of Apple, which highly regulates the distribution of its computers, profits for retailers like Best Buy are severely constrained. Compounding the problem, sales of Apple computers at Best Buy, especially in communities that already have an official Apple retail store, are very minimal. The precious floor space would be better used by enlarging the overall non-Apple computer department.

You can expect Best Buy to decommission its Apple departments within the next several months, if not sooner. However, you can also expect Best Buy to expand its Apple software and Apple accessories to all of its stores.

And meanwhile, back at the official Apple retail stores, staff often advise customers to pick up accessories at Best Buy. After all, the non-Apple accessories on display at the Apple retail stores are really more for customer convenience and less for Apple’s bottom line.

In the end, everyone benefits from the dismantling of Best Buy’s Apple departments.

If you have experiences with Apple computers at Best Buy, good or bad, please share them.

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