Dive Brief:
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Best Buy will begin selling the Apple Watch in more than 900 stores starting next month, with all 1,050 stores having the wearable on hand by the end of the month, and is revamping areas and displays in stores to feature the watch at its best.
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CEO Hubert Joly says the Watch is in high demand and the retailer wants to be prepared for any holiday rush. The retailer is the first outside Apple itself to sell it.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the Watch has exceeded the company’s expectations for sales, but demand appears to be waning.
Dive Insight:
Market research this summer shows that interest in the much-anticipated Apple Watch has abated significantly — sales have dwindled by 90% according to research firm Slice Intelligence — but the holidays are sure to give the wearable some kind of bump, at least for the lower-priced Sport versions.
Best Buy hopes so, anyway. In any case, the retailer must be doing well enough by the wearable to expand its sales efforts ahead of the holidays. Most analysts are still in wait-and-see-mode, noting that the Watch is a breakout in a relatively new category, and may still need time to catch on.
"The results surprised us because new Apple products are typically in high demand," Kirk Olson, VP of TrendSights at Horizon Media, told MediaPost. "It's true that consumers often don't see the potential of new technologies before experiencing them first-hand. But the high level of negativity is a clear signal consumers are questioning the value of yet another connected device, even if it is from Apple.”
The fate of the Watch will likely continue to be the source of much speculation, and Apple is under pressure to reveal sales data, which so far it’s refused to break out.
