The Costco Effect
Walking into Costco last weekend to stock up on (yet more) diapers I was welcomed by the loveliest palette of products I think I’ve ever seen. There, before me, stacked high were a countless number of the new HP iPod. You know a product has arrived to mainstream America when it is stocked at Costco.
Same too with RadioShack. Up until recently if you walked into RadioShack and asked for an MP3 player you would be greeted by a myriad of inferior MP3 players including flash units and the Rio line. Now my local Radio Shack has a banner hanging outside (I’ve never seen them hang a banner!) saying HP Apple iPods now available. Looks like Radio Shack wants to make some money too.
This is all great news for Apple.
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Comments
Great news? Yes and no. It’s great that it means more iPods sold and more iTunes used. It’s just a shame that it wasn’t until the HP iPod that this started happening.
I think the iPods were selling in great numbers before the HP models hit. However Apple getting in league with HP is great because now they leverage HP’s distribution channels. They just might hit 4 million iPods sold this qtr. I expect a Big Bang of iPod accessories and more itunes support for 3rd party products. Apple has the domination now extend and extinguish the darksides wma.
When I was shopping around for my iPod (10gb 3G), I went to Radio Shack. The salesperson claimed to know nothing of a Windows iPod and that if there was in fact such a thing that it would cost more than the Mac iPod. Mhmm. I let my dad talk to him and kept my mouth shut because I didn’t feel like arguing with the guy. He had no idea that the iPod worked on both Windows and Mac, and showed us an array of crappy mp3 players. I ended up getting my iPod at Best Buy, where there are actually quite a few Mac geeks working. I wonder if Radio Shack has found out yet that the iPod works on Windows.
As a side note, I now have an iBook, so no more Windows problems.