How productive is an Apple store employee?

Apple publishes data about its “retail segment” which ifoAppleStore.com catalogs. Here are some statistics I was able to compute from the data:

• The stores generate over $100k per employee per quarter. In 2010, revenue was $481,000 per employee. This year the average is around $320k excluding the fourth quarter. In 2009 the average revenue for the technology sector was $388k/yr. A retailer like JC Penney generates about $124k of revenue per year per employee.
• The revenue per visit is around $45. There are well over 250 million visits per year (222 million for first three quarters of 2011).

The combination of these two metrics are shown in the following chart:

• The number of employees has grown in proportion to the number of visits. There is one employee for every 2,500 visits/quarter. The following chart shows the relationship between retail personnel and store visitors on a quarterly basis.

• Assuming an employee works for 360 hours per quarter, the average employee sees 6 visitors per hour or one every 10 minutes.
• As that visitor generates more than $45 of revenue, an Apple store employee creates sales at the rate of about $278/hour.