Earlier this month third-party Apple retailer, MacMall opened their first retail store outside of southern California in Chicago, Illinois. To promote their new location MacMall will be holding a Grand-Opening celebration on March 31st where they will be entering the first 500 people who show up after the 9A.M. opening into a drawing that they will hold at 10 a.m. for over $7,000 in technology products. The 7,000 square foot store will also be holding giveaways throughout the day including, a Wacom Intuos5 Tablet, 5 Apple TV‘s, 2 iPod Touch players, 3 iPod Nanos, and an HP Office Jet printer among other items.
MacMall has stated that they plan on building more stores in Chicago, southern California, and possibly New York City. An expansion such as this is rare for a third-party retailer as Apple has recently been expanding their retail store presence smaller stores have found it difficult to compete. In fact there have been sanctions in Europe by smaller retailers complaining that Apple is using unfair tactics that give third party retailers a disadvantage.
What do you think? Would you like to see more third party retailers, or do you enjoy the experience of buying an Apple product in an Apple Store?
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