14 DAY TRIAL // In June, Apple and Best Buy were still in contract talks for bringing on the US retailer as an Apple reseller. Apple began testing sales of its Mac line at 7 Best Buy stores. All of these stores where located in the Southern California region and all of them featured a new planogram layout that prominently displayed the systems in a designated area of the retailer's personal computer department.
Apple had been evaluating the 7-store pilot and decided this week to expand. This expansion was certainly not a surprise for Best Buy that was prepared to expand if the pilot worked. As AppleInsider reported then: Best Buy has indicated that it is prepared to scale the Mac pilot program "rapidly" if it proves to be a hit, according to Steve Lidberg and David Niederman, two analysts with Pacific Crest Securities. They say a fortified relationship with the electronics retailer will present Apple with the opportunity to bulk up on its domestic retail presence. According to the analysts, Macs are currently featured in about 650 storefronts throughout the United States. This includes 141 Apple-owned retail stores, as well as 225 Apple store-within-a-store boutiques inside CompUSA locations. The opportunity to leverage Best Buy's exposure "could prove especially useful if supply-chain issues are worked out in the second half of 2006 and [Apple] is able to supply ample product to meet demand," Lidberg and Niederman say.
As it seems that the pilot gave satisfying results, Best Buy, the nation's No. 1 specialty electronics retailer, will stock for the Mac customers Mac notebooks, desktops, as well as some accessories and software at each store.
This is certainly a good move, because - as analysts have reported - a full expansion could generate as much as $400 million in additional Mac sales for Apple each year.
Despite this, Apple still continues to evaluate a similar pilot program at a handful of Circuit City stores. Regarding this issue though, no new information was reported yet.
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