How Apple achieves that Zen Apple Store look

Apple Stores look so spare and clean that we mortals struggle to visualize the conceptual work needed to build and run them. Well, struggle no longer, because ifoAppleStore.com has found a collection of Apple Store Planograms, which visually show the incredible amount of logistical detail Apple needs to make those 200 Apple Stores the most efficient retail engines in the world, pulling in more than $4,000 in annual revenue per square foot.

Lest you are not already bowled over by those planograms, consider this: Apple just underwent a complete redesign of its stores to eliminate the cash registers, preferring instead to empower employees with wireless Point Of Sale (POS) systems. Said another way, instead of having Apple store sales bottleneck on a few checkout employees, every Apple employee now is a checkout person.

Apple has already announced that it expects to have its best holiday selling season ever in 2007. After looking at the planograms and planning associated with the Apple Stores, we suspect that that announcement is less of a projection than a sure thing.

Full disclosure: The author owns Apple stock.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, Point of Sale, ifoAppleStore.com, Retail