Local APR Getting More And More Upset Against Apple And Its Policies

Over the last past years, we have already been reporting about the tension between Apple and its APR (Apple Premium Resellers). They have been supporting Apple during the crisis ranging from mid-90 to 2002, and they did not really benefit from the "re-birth" of Apple. Cupertino has been reducing margins of APR years after years, making also distribution channel more complicated and defining rules and policies for presenting products in shops, etc. The success of the online Apple Store has been the first major competitor. While Apple pushed large APR to open new shops in cities to surf on the iPod/iPhone success story, this would have been a fait strategy if Cupertino would not install physical Apple Stores in the very same cities. We can understand that Apple will open physical Apple Store in large cities, but it should then rather deal with local APR to help hem to relocate to smaller cities, in order to further increase the network on APR to get them closer to ALL customers (increase coverage). In France for example, the opening of a physical Apple Store in a large city strongly affect the survival of the often long time local APR. As a consequence, most local APR can not compete, and close down while they often provide a better service and being in the field for more years than those young newly recruited dude in the physical Apple Store. Many large APRs are discussing to find a way to be heard by Apple EU, however, it is unclear how Pascal Cagni (Apple Europe director) would be able to contact Cupertino to discuss about the strategy of physical Apple Store deployment in EU...