Apple today announced that its new Apple Marunouchi store in Toyko is set to open on Saturday, September 7. Marunouchi is Apple's third store in Japan to open since last April, and it is the largest Apple Store in Japan.
Apple Marunouchi is located near the Imperial Palace and across from the historic Tokyo Station. Apple's senior vice president of Retail and People, Deirdre O'Brien, said that the Marunouchi store marks a significant moment in Apple's relationship with Japan.
"Marunouchi has amazing energy and our teams can't wait to welcome customers to our largest store in Japan for the first time on Saturday," O'Brien said.
According to Apple, the split-level Marunouchi store was built with a unique facade, featuring two-story vitrine windows that were constructed from "specially cast aluminum" to allow them to feature three-dimensional rounded corners.
The windows are a first in an Apple retail location and are designed to allow the "vibrant street life" of the surrounding area to connect with the interior of the store. Bamboo lines the interior of the windows.
Marunouchi will feature "world-class creators" leading Today at Apple sessions, kicking off with The Tokyo Creative Guild, which is a special 12-part series that Apple is introducing to celebrate the store's opening.
Customers can begin signing up for Today at Apple sessions at Marunouchi starting now. Apple says that later this month, its Fukuoka store will also be expanding to a new location, and the remodel of Apple Omotesandō will be completed.
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Fantastic location for a new store. Because Marunouchi is primarily a financial district, the area used to be a concrete ghost town on the weekends. But it was redeveloped a decade or so ago to accommodate upscale retail, and is now a lovely place to spend a weekend window shopping, people watching, and walking around.
Too bad the customer service of Apple in Japan is quite slow and terrible.
I’m beginning to question your perspective or at least motives for being so negative despite living in Japan?
Not only have I been to several Apple stores in Japan, but I got excellent service from an English speaking Japanese person each time. “Welcome, can I help you” was a standard greeting and I was even able to ask questions about the iPhone X.
It is uncommon for a regular Japanese person to speak much English, but Apple seems to employ at least one to help foreign visitors.
My experiences of customer service at Apple Stores in Japan have been the exact reverse of heylarry's "quite slow and terrible" experiences. Would Apple allow anything less than excellent customer service in Japan, which has a cultural reputation for politeness, efficiency, and excellent service? It's unthinkable.
Will someone who has been to the new Marunouchi store please report back to this thread with your fresh impressions?
