• by Thom Forbes , February 1, 2012

So who is this Brit who has been hired to run what has arguably been the most innovative retail start-up in recent memory? John Browett, 48, was named yesterday to succeed the much-lauded Ron Johnson, who now heads J.C. Penney, as the company’s SVP/retail.

Browett has been CEO of Dixon Retail, a consumer-electronics retailer in Europe that, readers tellArs Technica’s Chris Foresman,is notable for being “messy, staffed with clueless salespeople, and sell[ing] low-quality goods.”

Furthermore, Foresman reports, the UK’s version of Consumer Reports -- Which? Magazine -- says that Dixon UK subsidiaries, Currys and PC World, “have unknowledgeable staff, substandard repair services and repeatedly fail to honor legal obligations to consumers under the UK's Sale of Goods Act.” A 2010 survey rated the chains as the worst retail shops in the country.

Patrick Barkham blogs in The Guardian: “Great customer service and Dixons go together in my mind as neatly as a Scart lead fits into a USB port.”

The analogy may be obscure, but you get the point. Barkham takes a field trip to a local Currys in search of another cable. He finds the store “dingy” and the staff unavailing until he finally corrals a clerk. Bottom line: Barkham gets the obscure cable he needs at bargain-bin price, concluding, “that's customer service.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook says, in a statement, "Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we've met." But he’s not, we’re quite sure, talking about adopting a dollar-store mentality to please the penurious that lurks within us all.

“Johnson left some huge shoes to fill given Apple's incredible retail success,” Foresman writes, and he’s skeptical that Browett is the guy to fill them given “the current state of Dixons.”

“It’s not so much filling his shoes,” Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates tellsFox Business’ Matt Egan. “It’s building on top of the base Ron Johnson built.”

Kay and other observers, such as Financial Times’ Lombard, are willing to cut Apple and CEO Tim Cook a little slack. “The appointment … is either mad or inspired. Superficially, there could be no odder choice to lead the world’s coolest tech retailer than a 48 year old experienced in selling washing machines to penurious Brits,” Lombard writes.

But there’s hope, given that Browett’s role model is Mrs. Slocombe, “a bouffant brassiere saleswoman” in a sit-com set in a department store called Grace Brothers. Her mission was “to sell customers products that fitted them,” and that, presumably, has become Dixons’ mantra, too.

"Dixons was a tired, better version of RadioShack,'' Brian Meany, a managing director of Herbert Mines Associates, tells the Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro, Joann S. Lublin and Ben Rooney, but Browett improved store service and “got great marks for doing it.''

Planet Retail analyst Robert Gregory tellsThe Guardian’s Rupert Neate that Browett “is a very dynamic character and not afraid to take risks.” Gregory also applauds what he sees as a turn-around in customer service at Dixons.

Browett, who holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and was previously CEO of Tesco’s online shopping site and worked at Boston Consulting Group before that, joined Dixons in 2007 and is “credited with freshening Dixons' image with innovative marketing -- including an advertising campaign featuring Darth Vader,” report Reuters’ James Davey and Poornima Gupta. And, like Vader, his ambitions will no doubt be cosmological domination.

"An outsider with international experience will help guide Apple's global expansion strategy," RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky tells Davey and Gupta. "His experience includes localizing stores for multiple countries."

“This is the premiere retail operation in the world. They have products that people want and they have no deadwood on the shelves,” Kay tells Fox’s Egan. “Clearly, geographic expansion is in the wind.”

This is not the first time that some critics have been skeptical about Apple’s retail game plan. In May 2001, Business Week’s Cliff Edwards famously penned a commentary headlined “Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work” when the company was opening its first retail outlet at Tyson's Corner Galleria mall outside Washington.

"Apple's problem is it still believes the way to grow is serving caviar in a world that seems pretty content with cheese and crackers," former CFO Joseph Graziano “gripes” to Edwards in support of the thesis.

Turns out consumers have cultivated a taste for caviar after all.