Apple revolutionizes the world of computer shopping by opening its first two Apple Stores. Located in Tysons Corner, Virginia, and Glendale, California, the new outlets represent the culmination of a long-term dream for Apple. A couple of decades later, Apple will expand its retail operations to and regions around the world.
Like virtually every other brick-and-mortar store, they faced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020. However, they remain some of the most profitable retail outlets anywhere on a dollars-per-square-foot basis. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had help creating the Apple Store concept.
But it was undoubtedly a Jobs-led initiative. When he returned to Apple in 1996, he laid out two initiatives: setting up Apple’s online store, and establishing a around the United States. The idea was to revolutionize the way people bought Apple products.
The CompUSA experiment served as a prototype for the Apple retail stores that opened on this day in 2001. Inside a dedicated section of each CompUSA store, Apple-trained employees helped customers connect with Cupertino’s products. As with so much of what Jobs did, the idea was to give Apple control — not just over which products it sold and the hardware/software combination, but also they were sold.
CompUSA and the birth of the Apple Store However, the initial CompUSA “store within a store” concept didn’t work as well as it could have. Apple could dictate the way its products were displayed an.