Target is rolling out an “Apple Shopping Destination” to select stores, and planning to expand further over time

Essentially a mini Apple Store within Target, this will enhance the experience of shopping for Apple products at Target stores.

From a press release put out by Target today:

Target Corporation today announced an enhanced Apple shopping experience for its guests. The new shopping experience debuts online and will begin rolling out in select locations this month, with additional locations scheduled to roll out by the end of this fall.

You can get a sense of what these “Apple Shopping Destinations” will look like inside a Target store in the image above. Apple has been doing these kind of “Apple Store within another retailer” concepts for decades now. Back in the 90’s I used to spend a ton of time inside the Apple section of my local CompUSA store. These were staffed by an actual Apple employee, but the displays were pretty awful with the PowerBooks bolted down to the tables, and the Apple section was way back in the back corner of the store.

In fact, frustration over how Apple products were displayed in retail stores was a big driver for Apple to open its own stores at the beginning of this century. Apple actually hired an executive away from Target by the name of Ron Johnson to spearhead its early retail efforts. Almost everything about the way Apple Retail works today goes back to Johnson’s innovations. (I worked in Apple Retail in the early years and was always proud to work under Ron Johnson.)

Apple has done a lot to improve the shopping experience for its products in third-party retail stores since those CompUSA dark ages. Best Buy has had Apple sections very similar to what we see in the above Target concept image for years.

Right now Target is rolling this out in 17 of its stores, but hopefully it’ll get to many more stores than that over time. This is particularly helpful for customers who don’t live anywhere near an Apple Store.