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.
The Apple Store down the street from me has cash registers. I think they only do the iPhone checkout thing when you do a large purchase.
My experience standing in line at an Apple Store has been very bad. Perhaps worse than any retail store I can recall. By not having a clear line the customer is left confused. What am I supposed to do if I want to buy a mouse? If the store's not busy you're set. If it is busy you have to try and grab an employee, who's undoubtedly busy helping another customer already. Then they tell you to stand in the line. Except that the front cash register area is both a cash register and a work station. So you might be standing in line and the two people in front of you are getting repairs. So you wait 15 minutes to buy a mouse.
A busy Apple Store feels like a DMV to me. There are numerous customers standing around waiting to be helped, but there is no clear way to get a ticket, as there at least is at a DMV.
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.
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.
I'm not sure how it works yet but the newest version of the App Store app on your phone allows you to actually check youself out - no blue shirt needed.
Not sure how they prevent theft yet though, I haven't yet used it.
I used that feature last week and it's quite amazing. Like you, I'd be worried about theft though.
I literally walked into the Apple Store, to the back, grabbed a Bumper off the wall, opened the Apple Store app on my phone, scanned the Bumper UPC, paid with my Apple ID, and walked out of the store. Took about 4 minutes total.
And I definitely felt like I was stealing something.
Actually, this is something I hate about Apple Stores. Give me a line to a cash register and I'll happily stand in it, but I hate having to track down someone that will take my money - usually all the employees are chatting up other people in the store.
From this customer's point of viwe, I could never work out out whereto pay for the damn stuff. Traditional visual cues such as 'pay here' have their place.
