Apple hopes SF flagship will encourage customers to linger

The Apple Store has a Genius Grove complete with trees, hoping that customers will be able to get help in a quieter setting. The Apple Store has a Genius Grove complete with trees, hoping that customers will be able to get help in a quieter setting. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 68 Caption Close Apple hopes SF flagship will encourage customers to linger 1 / 68 Back to Gallery

Apple wants to make its stores a place to meet, not just shop.

For its new flagship store, opening this weekend on San Francisco’s Union Square, the company has tinkered with its already radical approach to retail, hoping to create a space where people will want to talk, relax and linger.

Giant bay doors opening onto the square invite shoppers to browse. The famous Apple Genius Bar is replaced with a quieter Genius Grove, complete with trees.

A 130-foot wall of accessories, known as the Avenue, is organized by creative interest, with separate sections for products related to music and art. Employees dubbed Creative Pros, with backgrounds in the arts, can show shoppers how those products work.

The town square concept is the handiwork of Angela Ahrendts, the former Burberry fashion house CEO lured to Apple in 2014 to oversee its retail and online stores. The company’s nearby Stockton Street store will close Friday.

“We have reimagined what the future of Apple retail will be,” Ahrendts said Thursday on a tour of the Union Square store. “This is not just a store. We want people to say, ‘Meet me at Apple.’”

The Cupertino company faces mounting pressure to increase interest in its products, with sales of iPhones and Mac computers slipping. Whether a more inviting store can do that remains an open question.

Indeed, the idea of encouraging customers to hang out flies in the face of traditional retail thinking, since stores usually depend on high rates of foot traffic to succeed.

“They’re getting desperate, much like Apple did in the late 90s, and when companies get desperate they make a lot of mistakes,” said technology analyst Rob Enderle, with the Enderle Group.

Apple introduced a new formula for tech retail sales when the first of its 477 stores opened in Virginia in 2001. The creation of Genius Bars — tech support stations set up in every store — essentially guaranteed customer service, and the open store layout encouraged customers to try out the products on display.

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That Apple Stores offered only a few premium products also set them apart from Best Buy and other tech retailers that sold hundreds of products, ranging from refrigerators to cell phone chargers.

“Apple comes in with this new formula during the time technology retailing was tough,” said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. “It’s great customer sales staff. It’s a great layout, so people can touch and play with products. ... What they have works really well.”

The formula worked so well that it hasn’t fundamentally changed in 15 years, Bajarin said.

Apple doesn’t intend to lose its signature features, Ahrendts said Thursday. The company plans to keep the wooden tables where phones, iPads and laptops are displayed. Just behind them, colorful cases pop off the wooden back wall. An array of Apple Watch straps immediately guides the eye.

But the Union Square store includes significant changes.

Key among them are the Creative Pros — longtime artists, videographers and other creative people hired specifically for this new position. They can show customers how to use Apple products in pursuit of their passions.

Rhonel Roberts has painted in San Francisco for 13 years. Now, he’ll split his time between his own studio and Apple, where he’ll show shoppers how he uses Apple products in art and music.

“Now I have the opportunity to share my passion with others through the Apple Store,” Roberts said.

The Genius Grove will lose the Genius Bar’s long desk and add trees, in an effort to calm the noisy, often chaotic experience.

Upstairs, wooden blocks and leather balls provide seating in front of a large video screen. Art lessons, photography classes and demonstrations led by Creative Pros will take place in this space, known as the Forum.

Out back, the Plaza will feature a 65-foot “living wall” covered in plants along with the famed Ruth Asawa bronze fountain. The initial plans had consigned the fountain to an unknown fate, but the resulting outcry persuaded Apple to change the design. The Plaza will feature free acoustic musical acts and seating for a few hundred.

And in one of the biggest tweaks, the new store includes a Board Room, intended as a potential destination for small business owners. The all-wood conference room equipped with Apple products will invite entrepreneurs to meet and brainstorm ideas.

“Our mission is not just to take care of customers, but also to take care of small businesses,” Ahrendts said.

The retail concept is meant to connect people with Apple products through their personal interests.

“The passion is the point of intersection between the technology and the people,” said Jean-Marc Gady, Apple’s retail creative director.

Still, several analysts said Thursday that a store redesign won’t help the company as much as introducing products that excite consumers. Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones in the most recent quarter, a 16 percent drop from the same period in the previous year. Mac sales fell 12 percent to around 4 million, and iPad sales decreased by 19 percent to 10.3 million.

“It’ll work in the short term, but they’re going to have to figure something else out,” said retail consultant Brian Kelly. “They have to invent something else. They’re really at the end of a product line. They’re not creating new categories as they once did.”

Jessica Floum is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jfloum@sfchronicle.com Twitter: jfloum