Apple Watch Now Available at Target in Stores and Online

Now get Apple Pay at Target!

The Apple Watch has been for sale since April. How is October "so fast"? Just curious.

A.

Because it's such an about-face from the original "appointment only" in special sections of Apple stores and in a few luxury shops approach at launch. It went from special & exclusive to Target & Best Buy in 6 months. You kinda have to wonder why...

Where's the "It's Happening" guy?

There...

I remember having to make an appointment to buy a Commodore 64. And then later, a basic Amiga was a special order item.

Maybe I've been around longer than you, but I NEVER expected the Apple Watch to be by appointment only for very long. I expect Target and Best Buy were all part of the plan. There are still special versions of the Apple Watch that are exclusive (like the Hermes Apple Watches), but this was always going to be a mass market item.

I've got a few years on me myself (had a Vic 20), but working in retail (I'm in fashion), I know what we do when things aren't quite going to plan (change strategy or slash prices). I didn't expect it to be Appointment Only forever either, but the combination of that plus building special sections in stores, launching in select luxury shops in Milan, Paris, Tokyo, etc plus the hiring of Burberry execs, doing the crazy gold $17K versions, hooking up with Hermes, etc, etc. well.... you start to wonder who thought to get this in Target in 6 mos.

Personally, I really like my watch, but it's a very niche product with limited need and appeal. There's a chance they may be flattening out a bit (or that sales chart incline is a little less steep than they like) and decided to get this in places where they can move some units.

Nothing wrong with that, but it is interesting from a gadget watcher's perspective.

Apple rolled the iPhone really slowly to third party retailers. Why the Apple Watch so fast? Are they trying to keep up revenue?


Either way, they shouldn't try to roll out in large scale. The Apple Watch - to me - is Apple's weakest product. After owning my SS 38mm for 6 months I got rid of it. Such a beautiful product, but ask Elon said, it seems really lacking. They shouldn't push the Apple brand on a product that isn't perfect yet, keep it underground and away from the general public until it's perfect like the iPhone 3G

Except Apple is a massively larger and more popular company now than it was 8-10 years ago. It's hard to keep anything underground. The watch certainly isn't perfect but I still wear and use mine every day. I can't see Target giving up retail space for the Watch if they didn't expect it to sell.

Apple rolled the iPhone really slowly to third party retailers. Why the Apple Watch so fast? Are they trying to keep up revenue?


Either way, they shouldn't try to roll out in large scale. The Apple Watch - to me - is Apple's weakest product. After owning my SS 38mm for 6 months I got rid of it. Such a beautiful product, but ask Elon said, it seems really lacking. They shouldn't push the Apple brand on a product that isn't perfect yet, keep it underground and away from the general public until it's perfect like the iPhone 3G