

What I Learned Building the Apple Store - tilt
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/what_i_learned_building_the_ap.html

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bradleyland
"...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, and Amazon carries them all — and doesn't
charge sales tax!"

I don't mean to take anything away from Ron Johnson (how could I, who am I?),
but I'd like to take a crack at answering this rhetorical question.

Apple's retail presence is unique for many reasons, but a big part of its
uniqueness stems from the fact that they are the only computer retailer that
has their own stores. The key point there is that you're going to buy a
computer at a store _owned and operated by the company that made the
computer_. That is entirely unique in the world of computing, and I'd
speculate that there is a significant incentive present here.

When you buy something from Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc, you're dealing
with a retailer whose primary interest is in keeping he customer just happy
enough to come back and shop with them again. If they can find a way to pawn
the customer off on the vendor, they will. It's in their interest to do so.

Every customer knows this game: You bring a product back to a retailer. The
retailer tells you that you must talk to the manufacturer. You call the
manufacturer, and they explain that the retailer should just accept the item
as a return and give you another one... or some similar explanation.

The point is that the customer ends up bearing the burden of managing this
process. What a pain in the ass! I bought this thing and I just want it to
work. I want to talk to someone familiar with the product. I want to talk to
someone who actually _cares_ about my feelings about the product.

The astute reader will note that each of the typical gripes above are solved
by the Apple store formula because the employees are beholden to Apple, who is
also the product manufacturer. They are the final stop on the responsibility
train. No one else to talk to. Retail panacea!

Consumers know this. I know more than one person who are long time Apple fans,
and they'll all tell you the same thing: buy from the Apple store directly
instead of a reseller because they'll take better care of you.

~~~
seanalltogether
Gateway used to have their own stores, Sony has their own stores, I don't
think the uniqueness of Apple comes from simply cutting out the middleman.

~~~
nirvana
I went to a gateway store. It was a pretty bad experience. The machines were
locked down and you couldn't use them. The sales people were the same kind
you'd find at CompUSA (unknowledgable and myth spreading).

Sony is a little better, as they at least try to put some interesting design
into their stores.

~~~
thematt
I'm curious, what do you mean by "myth spreading"?

~~~
mitjak
* "Without this third party package there is a high chance of getting a virus or getting hacked"

* "More expensive HDMI cables produce a better quality image"

* "Higher megapixel cameras produce higher quality pictures"

Etc. Those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head that I was
personally enlightened with at one point or another.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, I almost feel compelled to follow any salesperson I see at one of those
stores who's helping an affable but uninformed person just so that I can
correct all the false statements they're told after the salesperson goes away.
It's amazing to me that people hire most of those people to represent their
stores and companies. Most big box retail electronics stores are really shoddy
shopping experiences.

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jfruh
One aspect of the experience in the Apple Store that Johnson doesn't mention
is that all the gadgets there are powered up and you can play with them. I've
never understood how cell phone stores and electronics retailers who almost
invariably have dummy units out on display expect to sell anything to a casual
buyer. This especially goes for Windows Phone 7; people who use it seem to
love it, but it doesn't have much iPhone style mindshare so it seems like it
NEEDS to be out there to fiddle with. But I've only seen dummy units in
stores.

~~~
there
i went to best buy the other day and strangely, the two iphones (at their own
booth in the cellphone department) were tethered but completely functional.
just about every other android phone was tethered the same way but had a dummy
screen.

i can't imagine that the vendors requested that the units be fake (why would
you not want a working demo?) so it must be best buy that did this. yet the
iphones were more expensive and possibly fragile than any of the other android
phones there and they were real.

~~~
sbov
Maybe it's a condition of being an authorized retailer of Apple products -
certainly wouldn't surprise me.

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thematt
One of the biggest reinventions I've noticed is the elimination of cash
registers in the Apple Stores. Walk up to almost any employee and they can
check you out with their handheld computer. That is a huge plus from a
customer experience point of view.

~~~
ugh
That’s nice but also the one negative point about Apple Stores. They are
usually packed and many people want to buy something, too many to really
handle without a line – yet there isn’t one place where a line could form,
which tends to lead to confusion. People who are completely new to Apple
Stores might moreover not immediately know where to pay what they want to buy.

When I visited the Apple Store in Munich for the first time I wanted to buy a
€15 gift card but every Apple employee was busy and I couldn’t really find a
place where I thought I would be able to pay. It seemed like too much of a
hassle and that gift card wasn’t important enough for me. I wasn’t really
trying very hard to buy something but I think this shows that packed Apple
Stores aren’t a very friendly place for small impulse purchases.

By the way, in the Munich Apple Store they sort of do have a semi-permanent
setup on the right at the back of the store. I think a lot more people in
Germany still pay cash (I payed my iPad cash – don’t ask.) so their nifty cash
registers (which are hidden under the tables) are needed more often (they are
also not mobile) and there are more or less permanently Apple employees there.
If a line forms they will tell you that you can pay everywhere but that
doesn’t really help a whole lot when every single employee is busy.

I think what Apple is doing works extremely well for Stores that aren’t packed
– but if they are it seems to break down a bit. And Apple Stores are usually
packed.

~~~
jimcunningham
I used to work at an Apple retail store and I empathize with your frustration.

With respect to the line idea, we trialed that and found it to be a disaster.
You see as the apple store is so packed we quickly found the line going out
the door. This clearly signaled to all who walk by that they should not come
in.

We make the best we can of a great(profit)/bad(wait times) situation.

------
richcollins
_One of the most common comments I heard was that the Apple Store succeeded
because it carried Apple products and catered to the brand's famously
passionate customers. Well, yes, Apple products do pull people into stores.
But you don't need to stock iPads to create an irresistible retail
environment. You have to create a store that's more than a store to people._

 _People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to
pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but
maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any
retailer — is that the staff isn't focused on selling stuff, it's focused on
building relationships and trying to make people's lives better._

Best of luck creating a great experience that makes people's lives better with
shit products.

------
BryanB55
The most interesting part of this article: How someone could leave Apple to
work at JC Penny! Really? For some reason I have a feeling he's doing it
mainly for the money, but that's just me speculating...I surely hope not.

~~~
philwelch
He's CEO of JCPenney. I don't think he would have gotten to that level at
Apple. And if your passion is retail, CEO of it's a dream job.

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ctdonath
Just me, or do store personnel seem ... extremely formal and polite to an
unusual degree of training? Don't mean it bad, they just seem a bit, um, odd.
They're so efficient I can't quite put my finger on it.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It's not just you. Ron Johnson, from the article:

 _No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years._

I have a hypothesis about this: People didn't instinctively walk up to the
Genius Bar because they had to be _trained to accept the existence_ of a
computer store employee who wasn't going to waste their time.

Of the retail-chain employees that you're likely to encounter in a store,
there are two broad stereotypes: The ones who don't really understand the
products, and the ones who are trying to close new sales as efficiently as
possible. The Apple Geniuses fit neither category, and that does indeed feel
odd.

~~~
yuhong
Yep, it takes a while to build a reputation.

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dean
_"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.

~~~
danssig
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.

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daimyoyo
Something he didn't mention is how Apple is pretty much the only retail store
in existence that has items people want to use, and has a policy of letting
them use the products as much as they want. I think that's the single biggest
difference(well, that and the fact that Apple employees aren't on commision)
between Apple and every other electronics retailer. While everyone else is
full of people looking to sell you, Apple stands back and let's the products
sell themselves. It worked on me.

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jbrowning
In many ways, I think the Apple Store has now become a victim of its own
success. Recent discussions on HN and elsewhere mention confusion with the how
to actually buy something at the store when all the blue shirts are busy. Most
of the stores that I have visited recently are packed with people making it
hard for those new to the store to browse and explore. It will be interesting
to see what Apple does to address these problems as its stores get even more
popular and congested.

~~~
jamesbkel
In case you missed this: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-
pickup-se...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/in-store-pickup-self-
checkout-likely-coming-to-apple-store-near-you.ars)

(there was actually a well-commented post about this on HN not too long ago,
but after a few min I gave up trying to find it)

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Yhippa
Ron will have an interesting challenge at his new employer. I feel for
traditional retail that the customer experience hasn't changed that much.
Maybe it's because I'm a guy but when I step into a big store like that I want
to know exactly where what I'm looking for is. I haven't seen a good solution
to that yet for bigger stores.

------
Angostura
Context: I am an Apple fan, I have been using its products for a little over
20 years

But am I really the only person who finds the Apple Store a wretched
experience?

The first time I went into one I was horribly confused - where to I actually
pay for stuff? I want some help with a product that I've bought.Can I ask you?
I can't. You? No. Oh, I have to visit the Genius bar. Where's the queue for
that? Over there? Oh, there is no queue, I have to book online. Or don't I?
Who do I ask to find out?

Even when I book a Genius Bar appointment, I'm left dangling. Hello, I'm here
for my apointment - do I tell anyone? Do I kinda hang about until the time
slot is here? Will I be called forward?

I hate the places.

------
baby
I personnaly think the Appstore was awful on the iPhone 1G. You would connect,
try to find an app. Some app you couldn't download because it was not
available in the app store of your country. Then when you download an app it
goes back to the home screen and prompt you with a new thing to accept before
downloading it. Then you have to enter your password again (I hope for you its
a short one). Then finally it's downloading. Of course you were looking at
several apps so if you want to install 2 or 3 in the same time or make a queue
you can't, you have to go back in the app store et re-find that other app you
saw and install it.

I thought it was a mess and that nobody would really get into it.

Then people started making crappy/fun apps to play with their iPhone/iTouch.
And this is were it all started. Imo it's because of the huge number of people
who got an iPhone/iTouch that it works. Eventhough we were struggling with the
appstore, the possibility of getting new apps like our phone was a computer
was something appealing.

The appstore didn't make the iPhone, the iPhone made the appstore.

~~~
teej
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