Apple Revolutionizing Retail 418
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting blog entry on Apple's 'iPod Express table', where they streamline the sale of iPods in their store. From the article: 'But the best part was that the Apple Geniuses behind the table had wireless gizmos for scanning credit cards, and Apple had worked out a totally wireless, paperless checkout process, called EasyPay. Once scanned, they advise you that the receipt will be in your inbox within an hour (since I'm already a registered Apple customer, they didn't even need to take my email or other information).'"
Bah (Score:2, Interesting)
You know what's easy? I hand you money, you hand me the product and receipt. If you want my personal information, buy it. Wouldn't it be great if we all went back to that sort of system?
Hackable? (Score:3, Interesting)
But I am sure the guy who cracks their wireless encryption will love it when he gets your email and other information... along with your credit card numbers.
But seriously, "all paperless" that can't be good. I might be old school but I like a papertrail when giving someone my money.
Re:Apple Stores (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Can't they just guess (Score:2, Interesting)
I see how this is an interesting concept, and maybe leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but unless an ipod is the type of thing you buy every couple of days on a whim, it doesn't seem that useful...
the most you're probably going to get is one a year; you really don't need everything to be completely streamlined.
Cumbersome isn't the issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally the Appple store in my area is fun to browse, wander thorugh and try things out. It was designed so people can browse without feeling crowded or harried. Converting one of the sidewall sections into a dedicated sales point for a high volume product makes perfect sense to me.
Because of the ipod specific section, the rest of the store retained its charm and usefulness, i.e. there wasn't a swarm of people all over the store asking "Where do we get ipods" interfering with people who wanted to buy other things (computers, cameras, software, etc etc).
Thought of another way: It was a clever form of crowd control to keep the store manageable.
Trackback now! (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes it didn't work as well as advertised. [ifoapplestore.com]
But yes, they're going to tweak it and use it anyway. [businessweek.com]
Was this present at all Apple Stores during the holiday season? I seem to have completely missed it.
Re:Amazing But True (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Never got a receipt. watch out (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Bah (Score:2, Interesting)
As an Illinois resident, I knew I heard something sound vaguely familiar before. Oh yes...I-Pass.
See, first they made it optional and charged the same. Of course they had all your personal information, and if they ever decide to do so could have limited tracking of your vehicle and give you automated tickets based on time/speed limit between two stations.
Of course what happened was they saw how successful it was and wanted to force EVERYBODY into it...so what did they start to do? Double the price for people who pay with coins/cash. That's right, they doubled it. Next it will probably be impossible to use coins for a toll here unless you go through the single coin toll line that will be left, where you'll have to wait an hour in line, and they'll need to see an ID before they let you through.
Is this comparison a bit extreme for the Apple situation? Perhaps. But don't try to smooth it over the way you did, because that lame excuse has been used time and time again on this slippery slope.
actually, they do (sort of) (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, EVERYTHING,
A feature comic (the middle act; you're anywhere from 2-10 years into comedy) makes around $15-23k a year gross. They write off a donut, their mileage, their shaving cream they bought on the road, everything. 1099 baby.
The expense report is them reporting it to the IRS. The same purpose we have expense reports. (well, that and someone pays us back what we spent. Hooray for companies!)
It could be one of the toughest and loneliest existences out there, the road comic. 50 weeks a year moving from town to town. Playing shitty gigs too, if you're a middle comic. No real "oomph" perhaps. Maybe a Premium Blend credit getting you into an A club or two.
Put it this way: when Columbus, OH is considered a great gig (the Funny Bone) in your chosen industry, perhaps you've picked the wrong industry. OK if beer pong were an industry that would probably be based in Columbus, too. And technically LA is pretty nifty as well, and New York is different from the road comics too.
take a deep breath, Bitter. Relax. Don't get carried away.
I'm going to go mix a white russian. Telecommuting rules.
Put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, me too, but most Americans pay with credit cards these days. I prefer a paper trail too (cash) but most of my American customers live on debt. And if someone isn't who they say they are, guess who gets stuck with no merchandise and no money to pay for it. That's right... me, the merchant. What you are complaining about, ID theft, is what merchants call a chargeback. You, after much frustration and fighting, will eventually get your money back. I won't. You're complaining about the dangers of efficiency and convenience. IMO, you should be complaining about the dangers of an antiquated system of plastic cards and magnetic stripes that store important information in plain text.
Yeah, I'd be happy as a lark doing it your way if everyone who came into my store plonked down greenbacks instead of gold cards. But that isn't reality. If privacy is your concern, your problem isn't the retailer, it's Choicepoint. The privacy argument is between you and your card company. You did, after all, give them your SSN to get that credit line. As for offering you cash customers (people who like paper trails as much as I do) preferential treatment and discounts, I'd love to. However part of the Visa/Mastercard duopoly's merchant policy is explicit: no preferential treatment to cash customers or you loose your merchant account. And since that's 90% of my business, I can't afford to do that. Otherwise, I'd be giving all my cash customers a 2% discount and a fast pass to the front of the line. Maybe when the average American decides it really is better to save and spend rather than spend and pay interest, things could be different.
I'm not trying to be nasty here, but look at it from both sides for a minute and you'll see the problem is with the mediator (CC companies). Not providing a bulletproof paper trail from the shopper's end of the equation, yet expecting one from the merchant without any guarantees from the guy in the middle is a bit unfair and unrealistic.
Re:this is all very off-topic. (Score:3, Interesting)
Last I remember, the boycott starting during 2000 here on Slashdot. I don't recall an official "Metallica/Lars no longer sucks" campaign.
Fuck Metallica!
Geniuses? (Score:1, Interesting)
Second, if Microsoft did this there would be complaints that they didn't provide the paper receipt that they used to and that they were being Big Brotherish and keeping your information on file "acting like it was for your convenience but is really for a one world government run by MS."
Re:streamline? (Score:3, Interesting)
As I said, it was before noon on a Tuesday, and the mall was dead. I probably saw less than a hundred customers wandering around the mall, and for the size of the place, that's not much... except for the Apple store. The Apple store alone probably had about fifty people in it, which was above the comfortable maximum for that size of store. It was the single busiest place in the mall as far as I could tell, and that was impressive.
So yes, Apple stores really *are* that busy, and if you've seen lineups at Christmas in any other stores (e.g. Electronics Boutique), then you'll understand how bad it can really be.
Some tidbits... (Score:5, Interesting)
2. As a victim of identity theft, those tinfoil-hats who worry about wi-fi snooping - a far greater threat is the clerk at the super-discount tech store (cough) COMPUSA (cough) who simply takes the credit card receipt for your newly-purchased stack of blank CDs and pulls it from his/her drawer at clock-out time, then writes down the number and (if they are sharp) even the 'security code' from the back of the card. Then, they purchase $9,600 in video equipment and downloadable software from Avid and Sony, and even if Visa is right on them, the purchases are complete before the victim arrives home to find a "we detected unusual activity on your account..." message on his answering machine. Lose sleep over the 9 months it will take to get that mess straightened out. Oh, and guess what - the US attorneys office won't prosecute, not will the state or local cops. Even the store dropped the thing. I couldn't even trick the Visa people into telling me where some of the contraband was shipped to (they set up an alternate ship-to adress, thanks to a stupid Visa service operator, which is how Visa ultimately had to admit that *I* had not bought all that software and hardware and was just trying to dodge paying) so I could ask the cops to pay the thief a visit. It never occurred to them that a Mac/Linux/OpenBSD guy would have no use at all for Windows video-editing software. Damages under $10k are not worth going after, apparently.
3. Apple does not compete in embedded systems like handheld credit-card processors, so it is no surprise their units don't run Mac OS. Yes, there are *nix/BSD strains that probably do, but I bet Apple just bought off-the-shelf system. Would it even make sense for them to develop a whole new line of products in an industry they don't even choose to compete in, just so they could use their own stuff? I think that would by way to 'not invented here' for them.
Re:Hackable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Andrew
Re:Apple Stores (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll second that. I took my PowerBook in to see if the genius could figure out some random kernel panic problems, and in the course of troubleshooting, the guy offered to install Tiger to see if that would help solve the problem. Now, let me be clear here: He wasn't trying to sell me Tiger, he was offering to install it...for free. He mumbled something about "because you'll upgrade eventually anyway, right?" but otherwise exerted absolutely no pressure.
So not only did I get free technical support for close to two hours of support (he finally figured out it was a bad stick of RAM), I got a free OS. The most painful thing I had to do was plan my evening to make sure they could see me!