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Barely three weeks into her role as the head of Apple retail, former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts is wasting no time in acting on her vision for the company. According to a MacRumors.com report, her approach will consist of three areas in which to revamp Apple's retail strategy: "China, mobile payments, and a redesign of the "end-to-end Apple Store sales experience."
Ahrendts, who employees have described as "honest," "warm and genuine" and "so Apple," plans to open 20 new Apple stores in China by 2016; the company secured deals with all of China's major cell phone service carriers in 2013. Ahrendts hopes the new deals will bolster Apple's smartphone market share in the country (it currently stands at just 7%).
Mobile payment services will also be seeing an upgrade as part of a larger push to reimagine the entire Apple mobile and in-store sales experience. Everything from product discovery to customer and employee interactions will be improved, which could include Apple's trade-in program, over-the-phone customer service, and Personal Setup. Ahrendts is adamant about using retail innovation to strive to "blur the lines" between Apple's mobile and in-store components, creating a more streamlined overall experience. How very Burberry of her.
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