AppleCentre Taylor Square spurns retail expansion

AppleCentre Taylor Square is to turn its back on further retail expansion in pursuit of a services-driven growth strategy.

The move comes after the Apple reseller’s plans to open a retail presence akin to Apple’s own AppleStore were recently scuttled.

According to Taylor Square director Ben Morgan, the proposal for the mega-store was knocked-back by Apple due to concerns over credit limits.

However, Taylor Square’s current credit limit was already equal to that required to enable the proposed store to open, he claimed.

Apple Australia marketing director, Rob Small, would not comment on the allegations, stating that commercial negotiations between Apple and its partners would not be discussed publicly.

In response to Apple’s move Morgan would now look exclusively to a raft of new services to drive expansion.

Using its training and education arm, Mac Academy, the reseller has launched a range of new services.

The first — Academy Master Class (AMC) Certified — is the company’s attempt at creating its own industry-recognised training standard and is aimed at building a uniform benchmark.

“Customers are calling for this,” Morgan said. “Businesses have issues with Photoshop or FilePro operators who are either too slow or who lack areas of knowledge and they want an end to that.”

Morgan claimed Taylor Square’s training was four times more in-depth than equivalent training offered directly from Apple.

An on-the-road version of Mac Academy, Mobile Academy, has also launched. It will travel into communities to provide services to schools and individuals where access to Apple-related training was limited.

For Morgan the credibility of Taylor Square’s certification standard would not be an issue when competing with dedicated training institutions.

“We deal with [Mac application] Final Cut Pro people every week and are the ones who build and support the systems they run on,” he said. “I think people would rather deal with someone who understands hardware and software through and through.”

Further service offerings were under development, Morgan said.