It seems unintuitive, but the fastest way to get an iPhone when you're standing in a store may be to pull out your phone and make a purchase on the website.
This won't always be the case (I've never been told I needed an appointment to buy an iPhone, and I've bought them at several different Apple Stores over the years), but if you run into an intransigent employee, give this a try.
At the very least, the employees should be trained to tell people about the in-store pickup option. That would avoid leaving a bad taste in the mouth of customers who just want to get in and get out.
> At the very least, the employees should be trained to tell people about the in-store pickup option.
If they were going to train employees to tell customers about that, they could also just... let their employees ring someone up without an appointment. It would take exactly as much time as explaining the work around would, and would be even less likely to leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth.
It's also much less likely to result in an upsell or selling additional merchandise. Why would they want to lose that opportunity?
Leaving a bad taste in a customer's mouth isn't a problem. Just look at the comments here from people exactly like that: they went somewhere else, and then bought the exact same thing. Sure, they're griping about it, but who cares? Apple still got their money for the item, and they freed up room in the Apple Store for another customer who might be more amenable to up-selling.
Why should Apple care about pissing off customers with this kind of treatment? It's not like they're going to buy an Android Phone or Samsung watch or whatever. They're going to buy the Apple product they have their heart set on, no matter how poorly they're treated by employees at the Apple store. So exactly what incentive does Apple have to make their shopping experience more efficient and hassle-free?
It kinda seems the fastest way to get an iphone would be to go to a store where you can actually say "i want to buy an iphone from you immediately" and they respond with "i want to sell an iphone to you immediately" whereupon your money and their iphone are exchanged.
It's sort of shocking to hear about going to a store, attempting to purchase something they are selling at the asking price, and being told "I don't feel like having commerce right now. I have a headache. Why don't you come back tomorrow cause I need something time to psych myself up?" It's almost violating somehow, maybe like seeing capitalism get violated or something. I mean, what if you went to the grocery store and they told you they don't feel like selling food to you at the time but they might have some appointments open. Hunger doesn't have a snooze button to delay it until the time of your appointment.
>It's almost violating somehow, maybe like seeing capitalism get violated or something.
No one's being violated here.
>I mean, what if you went to the grocery store and they told you they don't feel like selling food to you at the time but they might have some appointments open. Hunger doesn't have a snooze button to delay it until the time of your appointment.
You don't go to the grocery store if you're hungry (in fact, that's the worst time to shop for groceries). If you're hungry, go to a restaurant.
Anyway, if there's a fancy and horribly overpriced grocery store in town, and they treat customers like this, and those customers just give in and make appointments and come back later, how is the grocery store operating badly?
Normally, such a grocery store would quickly go under, as customers would go to a competing grocery store. But with Apple, that never happens. Apple customers will keep coming back for more.
Some people (apparently many people) actually like this kind of buying experience. I imagine some ultra-high end brands of clothing and cars treat people similarly.
Do you get how insane this sounds as an experience though? I'm physically in the store, saying "just let me pay for your product so I can leave" and the default is to try and drag that interaction out?
The existence of workarounds doesn't make it not stupid.
Not really. Apple is catering to the majority of consumers who don't arrive at the store with their exact purchase ready to go. They want to be guided and shown all the options.
And if you are in the small % who don't want this. Either go to one of the other retail stores selling the product, or order it online for pickup or delivery.
It doesn't make sense economically, and it is likely a side effect of a metric used on employee performance. Quick sale -> less time in store -> more time to help those that (actually!) need it. If you truly can't be bothered to take the money for an unambiguous transaction, Something Is Broken.
Yeah but the shop itself has a long-standing user interface, ie people go into a shop to buy what they want. Ok Apple are catering to people who might not be certain and amenable to upselling, but not easily catering to people who are fairly clear about what they want, for example long-standing and valuable existing customers, is seriously stupid. It’s not like people are casually wandering into an Apple store looking to purchase a hoover or a Linux netbook.
> the shop itself has a long-standing user interface, ie people go into a shop to buy what they want
Over the last twenty years, more and more shopping is done online. Fewer people want to visit shops - those that do are usualy there to seek advice. The need for shops is changing and will become more like showcases for what you can do with the products and how they might fit into the lifestyle that you aspire to have.
You hit the nail on its head. This is HN where mostly everybody knows tech, geek out about specs and learn about devices ahead of time. But Apple sells to a general population that is far less knowledgeable and mostly lives by "new phone good". Either guidance or upsell Apple knows what they're doing. We are not the usual demographic in an apple store.
But tons and tons of stores cater to customers seeking guidance through their purchases, yet if you show up knowing exactly what you want, they are only all too happy to take the easy sale.
I always excessively research big purchases, and so I have never in my life walked into a store like this without already knowing what I want. For example, walk into a sewing machine shop ready to buy without asking for any demonstrations, and see how almost giddy the staff get about it. Salespeople and shop owners often tell me how much they appreciate the rare customer who comes in ready to buy; it means more sales for less work.
It seems weird to turn those customers away instead of perceiving the sale as an unexpected-but-welcome freebie like 99.9% of other retailers do.
ill gladly bang the drum about how insulated the HN bubble is, but this opinion specifically is bizarre to me. why does this have to be one size fits all? when someone walks in and says "i know i want this, let me buy it" how is it unreasonable to expect Apple to realize that it can skip the default flow?
Maybe they've found that most of the time the customer is mis-informed and doesn't really know what they want. I don't know, but I expect they've got more data than you or I.
I don’t always know for sure what I want when I go into an Apple Store, but I never want to wait 45 mins for an appt! Usually it comes down to 1-2 questions about storage, photo quality, screen tech, etc.
It's probably actually about the opportunity to upsell. A single upsell on a MacBook to the next better specs pays for enough apple store employee time to make up for everything.
Seriously? You think most Apple customers are developers or tech enthusiasts or meticulous shoppers? That's neither the majority of Apple customers nor their intended primary audience.
Your use of dysphemism in that paraphrase suggests a defensiveness and personal identification with your own consumption choices that are not helping you assess Apple's strategy here.
It doesn’t sound insane at all. Unless you’re paying cash, the transaction is going to be set up on a computer, the inventory is going to be checked on a computer, and the payment is going to be processed on a computer. And your smart phone is a computer. Why is it odd to expect it to be faster to ask someone else to do this process for you rather than you doing it yourself? It’s not like you need someone with extensive point-of-sale software experience to blaze through this for you.
>>Why is it odd to expect it to be faster to ask someone else to do this process for you rather than you doing it yourself?
That's not really the issue here. It's more that it's odd to ask someone else to do this process for you and they tell you to make an appointment and come back.
A potential customer is telling an apple store employee "I want to exchange my money for your goods. I need you to do the exact same thing as a high school kid at a part time job, take my money and give me the phone. I just want you to act like a proper brick and mortar store for 2 minutes dammit."
To which the employee responds "I can't do that now be cause you don't have an appointment. When you come back withone, I'll be glad to take the 2 minutes that's needed to make that transaction."
The "insane" pat is that apple store employees, the purpose of which are ultimately to convince potential customers to give them money in exchange for apple stuff and facilitate the transfer of resources, are basically telling potential customers "I won't do my job where I take your money and give you apple stuff unless you have an appointment. You don't have one, no apple for you."
