"how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways"
A little off topic, but I have to say that I have never seen a new, latest release model of any Apple product on sale at any of these stores. Not Wal-Mart, not Target, not even Costco and certainly not Best Buy. Apple products just don't go on sale, so the Apple store is not competing against discounts at other stores.
Walmart doesn't typically do sales. What they do do is force vendors to drop prices every year. Can anyone on the inside confirm if they inflict this on Apple (who probably get around it with yearly refreshes) or if Apple is strong enough to tell them to FO with that.
A little off topic, but I have to say that I have never seen a new, latest release model of any Apple product on sale at any of these stores. Not Wal-Mart, not Target, not even Costco and certainly not Best Buy. Apple products just don't go on sale, so the Apple store is not competing against discounts at other stores.