About a week ago, Apple launched its Mac App Store—essentially an offshoot of its App Store for iPod/iPhone/iPad. By all accounts so far, it’s been a pretty successful launch, scoring one million downloads on its first day alone.
Even some developers who had initial reservations about this new way of buying software are being won over.
I can see a few things that are putting wind in the sails of those who’ve partnered with Apple on this experimental venture. First, pricing is fair but competitive within the App Store—particularly among small-sized apps that do one thing really well, as opposed to the bloated swiss-army knife approach that so many developers used to impose on their applications. Second, apps are presented compellingly as impulse buys. Not hard to part with $4.99 for Angry Birds. Plenty spend more than that on a fancy cup of coffee these days. The third factor is licensing, or rather, the lack of it with Mac Store Apps. No more having to save licensing codes. Buy the app and it’s yours.
Clearly, there’s lots to celebrate here for Mac developers, but there’s a lesson here that every business can learn from, too.
You sell more when you make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy from you.
(Photo: Apple)
