Esquire's Jill Krasny has the details in the delightfully titled "Experts Say the Apple Watch Is Doomed to Fail." (Tip o' the antlers to @Hazbro.)
Are you ready for the reason You might think you are, but have you done those special exercises the Macalope gave you Are you sufficiently hydrated Have you made your peace with whatever gods you worship
OK, then.
At least if Apple refuses to sell its watch in more mainstream outlets.
Just wait until later when you read which one in particular an analyst suggests. It's like the annual conventional wisdom convention came to town and trashed the place.
When Pharrell Williams posted an Instagram video of his Apple Watch, the Internet loved it. But when Apple's head of retail, Angela Ahrendts, confirmed the watch, which went on sale Friday, will not be sold in Apple's own stores before June, the celebrity focus felt tone-deaf.
To be sure, there is a certain annoyance factor at seeing celebrities running around with theirs when this mythical beast won't get his for weeks. However, the horny one also had to wait more than a month to get his iPhone 4 and you know what He got over it.
Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London, Colette in Paris, Maxfield in Los Angeles, and the Corner in Berlin are among the high-end "official" stockists of the watch. Not Topshop, Banana Republic, Nordstrom's, or any other store where you might shop.
And do you know why Because every mall with a Banana Republic already has an Apple Store. Why sell it in those stores when you can sell it in your own You know, when you actually have enough to actually sell in the stores. Which they don't yet.
But while it makes sense for Apple to position its smartwatch as a competitor to luxury watches, the high fashion strategy is baffling, and analysts Esquire spoke with voiced concern that the move could alienate customers.
The high fashion strategy is baffling... to analysts. Which is exactly who it should be baffling to. Bears and analysts.
"It makes no sense to me," Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Mulpuru told Esquire by email. "I don't know why you wouldn't have it in your own stores if you didn't have your own supply."
Well, they don't have supply, that's the problem. And they've clearly prioritized getting it onto the wrists of trend setters instead of, say, schlubs who write jokey columns for online publications. Which is annoying right now, but it'll probably work.
And, now, the moment you've been waiting for: PEAK CRAZY.
Brian Sozzi, chief executive of Belus Capital Advisors and a retail analyst, agrees. What he'd like to see is a store-within-a-store in, say, Best Buy.
WOW. What year is it If only the Macalope had a watch...
"That's where people shop," he said by phone...
Yeah, their sales have only been slowly sliding for at least four years. Why wouldn't you want to get in on that action It just makes sense.
"Apple is limiting themselves," Sozzi said, and its strategy could hamper the holiday season if it continues.
This is so great. It's like a tanker truck full of wrongness spilled all over the information superhighway. Even Krasny, who chased down this ambulance full of self-inflicted wound victims, can't get her brain around that one.
When I politely mention that not everyone likes to shop at Best Buy and that the store may considered too low-brow for longtime Apple customers...
When I did a gigantic spit-take of the orange cream soda I was drinking into Sozzi's face at the sheer lunacy of what he was saying...
...Sozzi suggests Macy's. "A lot of Macy's locations have been remodeled over the past five years and Macy's has always been viewed as 'upscale luxury,'" he explains.
Macy's is certainly closer, but it's possible that Sozzi has no idea what an actual luxury item really is.
"Is a... hammer a luxury item I don't understand why Apple doesn't sell the Watch in Home Depot. Many luxury items can be found... at AM/PM Markets I don't think I'm wrong about that."
Yes, Apple sells iPhones at WalMart. But it only does so because its stores are where Apple's stores aren't. Maybe someday you'll see the Apple Watch Sport at some low-end retailer, but when you're building a luxury brand, you don't start at the bottom and work your way up. You start at the top and work your way down. Which is what they're doing. It's weird that the cartoon of a an antelope/man with a Classic Mac for a head has to tell the retail analyst that, but... here we are.
One thing's for sure: It's more appealing than seeing Beyoncé sport a gold wristwatch.
A store within a store is more appealing than something, anything, on Beyoncé On that we shall have to agree to disagree.
There's still room for the Apple Watch to be a middling effort instead of a real hit, but if these analysts not getting it is any indicator, it's probably more likely the latter than the former.