Opinion: Apple's Chatswood store a burden for local IT retailers?

Hardware vendor Apple has just announced that it plans to open a new Apple Store in Chatswood, Sydney on Saturday 9 August, almost two months since it launched its flagship direct Apple store in Sydney’s CBD.

According to Apple’s media representatives, the Chatswood store is a “place to learn about all the latest products from Apple including the new iPhone 3G. The hands-on Apple Retail Store experience gives customers a chance to test-drive Apple’s entire product line including iPod touch and the MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook”.

IT retailers are already seeing a tightening of consumer belts as confidence in spending drops, petrol prices and interest rates rise and an ominous threat looms of recession in the coming year. How Apple retailers in the Chatswood area are going to deal with this new blow must be playing heavily on their minds.

Whether or not it will be worth continuing to operate a business already threatened by tough economic times and increasing competition from popular mass merchant retailers is a question becoming increasingly hard to answer.

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