Terrible Shopping Experience at the Apple Store
In 2001 Apple entered the retail market with the Apple Store, a one stop shopping mecca of all things shiny and geekily delicious. What began with two stores, in Glendale California and McLean Virginia, has since become an international phenomenon. Apple Stores are eagerly awaited, and are greeted with the kind of fanfare that is generally more typical of a blockbuster movie premiere, except with slightly fewer stupid pirate costumes.
These Apple Stores have defined themselves by their amazingly minimalist design aesthetic. They’re as beautiful as a retail store could be, and just as functional. Helpful nerds in t-shirts and sandals would help answer your questions and get you the information you needed. The products were laid out in a well organized manner that made it easy to find what you wanted. They were a pleasure to shop at.
That is, up until last week when I went to the my local Apple Store to buy a pair of headphones. I walk in and the first thing I notice is that they’ve changed the layout of the store. Word on the street was that they were going to be remodeling so I wasn’t all that shocked. I figured the headphones would be in the back, and sure enough they were. I grab the headphones I wanted and turned to my left.
NERDS!!!!!
That’s the Genius Bar, where people can line up and ask questions, like “Do I need to plug the iPod into the computer to download songs to it?”, and Apple Geniuses, dudes with rudimentary computer skills, can provide them with answers.
Well, I didn’t need that. So I turned to my left again.
Two things not indigenous to an Apple Store: video games and someone who actually knows anything about computers.
That’s the great wall of software. All kinds of Mac programs. Like Photoshop. And Photoshop Elements.
That doesn’t help me much, so I turn to my left again.
I should have just walked my ass out of there.
That’s where I came in from. There are a bunch of awesome computers and iPods there for me to play with, but that won’t help me purchase my headphones any faster.
So I turn to the left again.
That chick at the bottom is having a great shopping experience too. Great job Apple!
And I’m back where I started. Hey, look at that, THERE ARE NO CASH REGISTERS IN THE APPLE STORE! Yeah, that’s right, no registers.
So I grab one of the clerks who’s shuttling back and forth and ask, “How do I pay for this?” The smart alec clerk responds, “With money.”
Let me stop for a moment and mention that this is the first time in years that I’ve actually wanted to punch a sales clerk in the face (one day I’ll tell you about the last time).
So I take a deep breath and reply, “No, I mean, where do I pay for this?”
I’m then informed that the sales clerks are equipped with portable transaction units and that any one of them can help me. But not the one I was talking to because she (did I forget to mention she was a she?) was busy helping someone else. So I look around the store, and miraculously, everyone else in the store was busying helping other people. By “helping” I mean they were answering questions and showing off wares, not actually selling anything to anyone.
So I spot the closest sales chick and I wait patiently as she explains to a nice man what printers her could buy for his Mac Mini (short answer: EVERY SINGLE PRINTER IN THE UNIVERSE!). While I’m waiting a lovely older woman walks by, pissed as hell, muttering “How are there no cash registers?” Never in a million years would I think that me and old ladies would have a common foe, so thanks for that Apple Store.
Anyway, after a ridiculous wait the guy finally walks off and the sales person acknowledges that I’m waiting. I hand her the headphones and she starts plugging away at her handheld. She runs my card, and then smacks the side of the handheld. She tells me it’s not working.
Oh, isn’t that just fucking great?!
So then she finds another sales clerk and takes their handheld. She goes through the whole routine again and this time it works. Hurray for Apple. Then she asks if I want the receipt emailed to me. You see, thanks to those hippie bastards at Greenpeace Apple has a giant hard-on for the environment, and they’d rather email you a receipt rather than hand you a paper copy. Except the email address of mine they have on record, which they want to use, is some lame fake email I used once upon a time to sign up for lord knows what. So she asks if I want the email sent to fakeassemail@screwoff.com and I tell her no, just print out the receipt, which means she has to go into the back to get me the receipt. I don’t know what’s in “the back”, but I’m guessing it was a full resort spa because the chick took ten fucking minutes to come back. What the hell?! Though to her credit she did give me one of those nice tote bags which I didn’t want and she didn’t ask me if I wanted.
Now, I could stop right there with my shitty shopping story. But that’s not the end of my nightmare. You see, I get home and try and open the package, which appears to be made of simple cardboard, and discover that it’s actually made of friggin’ adamantium. And glued shut with super glue. And baptized in Satan’s hate.
I summoned forth all of my considerabl man-strength and this is as “open” as my fingers could get the package.
Five minutes, and two cuts on my fingers later, I sawed through the packaging and retrieved my headphones. Which sound great, by the way.
I tried pulling it open from the bottom, but failed. Luckily the industrial strength scissors I bought was able to cut through this bullshit. They also allow for great snowflake cutouts.
So overall, yeah, buying a pair of headphones from the Apple Store is probably the single worst shopping experience I’ve had in years. I’m all for minimalist design, but cash registers are one of those things that you kind of sorta need to have in a store. Steve Jobs, I curse thee!!!!
There have been 24 comments
“did I forget to mention she was a she?”
wtf is that supposed to mean? you can’t even open a package of headphones!! haha aren’t mac supposed to make life easier?
Woman, don’t make me break out my Kung-Fu Grip!
I am not an Apple Genius and never have been but I don’t think “Apple Geniuses, dudes with rudimentary computer skills” is quite right. They have to under go thorough certification tests and ship out to Apple HQ in Cupertino for hands-on training.
http://www.maclife.com/article/exclusive_a_day_in_the_life_of_an_apple_genius
“And after that, you go straight to Go, in this case “the mother ship” in Cupertino for two weeks of 9-to-6 sessions that include acquiring three Apple certifications: OS, Desktop, and Portable.”
My experience was kinda lame as well. I went in looking to purchase an iPod shuffle, and the sales person would not leave me alone. I was actually looking at one, and she kept pointing out features, and that it works with this Mac here and there, and that I might be interested in the 30gig or 60gig instead, etc… I said politely, “Yes, I know and understand what the features are. I want to look just at this one, as it’s a gift for a friend. I have never seen one ‘in person’. Thanks for your help.” — when I said that, it was like I had just insulted her mother, and she seriously gave me the “flip hair to the side and storm off” routine. Wow.
I had trouble at my apple store too, which actually has registers. I was trying to find a fm transmitter for my shuffle and the girl at the counter yelled at me when i kept asking why you’d need to buy one powered by the ipod, which you don’t. obviously, i didn’t make out with her.
You should try living in England then you’ll truely know the meaning of a bad shopping experience. We are a nation of ques even with cash registers and don’t expect staff to crack a smile either. Sounds like they need to iron out their new shopping experience/method. At least the earphones are good, that’s something.
You know, lee, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a makeoutable girl employed by at an Apple Store. The girls you work there tend be, I don’t know, totally fugly. I find that odd, given how cute the toys are there.
X, I hear the service industry in Europe operates under a completely different philosophy than here in the States. I’ve only been to Spain, but the clerks there were pretty mean. Though I will say that all the girl clerks there were smoking hot, and smoking hot girls tend to be mean to me…..
What puzzles me is this: why would you even want to buy those headphones? They sound awful. Really.
[...] “Now, I could stop right there with my shitty shopping story. But that’s not the end of my nightmare. You see, I get home and try and open the package, which appears to be made of simple cardboard, and discover that it’s actually made of friggin’ adamantium. And glued shut with super glue. And baptized in Satan’s hate.” — Nima Yousefi [...]
Yeah, I’d second the whole “England as a shopping hellhole” thing. Try going to Currys (electrical retailers) or B&Q (horrifying DIY shops). In the former you’ll have to wait several hours before anyone bothers to enquire if you’d like some assistance, while in the latter that would never happen. I mean never.
really? i like fucking the apple girls. they’re so sad and emo. you can watch them cut themselves when they’re done. it’s cute.
Bwahahaha!!! Serves you right for buying that crap from Steve BlowJob, anyone with a functioning brain understands that all Apple’s products are pure SHIT!!!
APPLE SUXXORS!!! UP THE GOATSEHOLE!!!
//G Hårddisksson
Apple store in Nyack, NY still had cash registers as of 6/30. Went the Sat after the iphone came out and they had a crowd control line outside the door. When 2 people came out, 2 more were allowed in. Problem was, the store wasn’t crowded. It was way less crowded than a normal weekend. More iphone hype bs.
But my son’s ipod headphones were broken. The “genius” took about 5 minutes in the back (maybe there IS a spa back there), handed us new ones with no hassle, no check to make sure they were still under warranty. So other than the stupid line, the experience was pretty good.
I seriously doubt there are no cash registers in the Apple store. I find it unlikely the sales folks carry cash around to make change. Since you state they were in the process of a remodel, my guess would be that they were running point of sale from the genius bar.
The reason they have those remarkably wonderful hand held credit scanners is for exactly people like you, buying a pair of headphones.
I was standing around the Apple store near the back (where the cash registers moved to), and someone’s buying Macbook, .Mac, AppleCare, etc. and asking all kinds of questions about each at the cash register. A poor lady is standing in line three people behind him, rolling her eyes, holding a $20 iTunes gift card, obviously wondering how long this is going to take.
One of the sales folks who isn’t with a customer sees her, goes behind the sales counter, grabs the handheld, and walks up to her and asks “is that all you’re getting?”. “Yes”. “Are you paying with a card?” “Yes.” “Ok, I can ring you up now if you want” and guides her out of line over to the side, rings her out, and sends her on the way while the guy at the counter is still trying to understand the difference between AppleCare and ProCare.
That’s what Apple hopes to do with those handheld things, and after buying many times both ways, I know they are faster than the cash registers at getting you in and out. The only hangup is if, when they ask, you request a receipt, and they ask if an email receipt is ok, and you go into “deer in headlights” mode and freeze up.
If you want the fastest buying experience in history… walk into an Apple store, pick up the product you want, and hold up the product in one hand, your credit card in another, and announce “This is all I need, I don’t need a receipt, who’s got the hand scanner?”. You can even start walking towards the door while you’re getting checked out to give you a headstart on the poor slobs paying cash at the rear!
But Apple can’t (yet) build retail employees in China. So your mileage will vary with the inevitable human factor. But I’ve found that working with them rather than against them really helps… anticipate the standard retail questions (are you browsing or buying? got any questions? ready to check out? cash or credit?) and proactively offer the answers.
ok, so the person you wanted to punch in the face as a sales clerk… was a girl?!?!?
dood, not cool.
even if she was being snooty & smart alecky, wanting to punch girls in the face is not cool.
so apple has done a retail paradigm shift — store full of wonderful, shiny items that bring back your sense of child-like wonder with the universe, but no cash registers. actually, i kinda like that. you’re just not *used* to it. so there are some glitches to work out (and bitches to work out, like yourself). big deal. soon all stores will catch on and people will look at those old cash register thingies and wonder why we ever used them.
and not being able to get the box open from the correct side means you = wus.
Actually, all Apple Stores have cash registers. All. They just don’t stand out very much because they’re usually white with light colored wood just like everything else in the store, and they don’t have huge lighted numbers above them like Target or w/e. So your entire story is wrong, and last time I went to my Apple Store it was super easy to buy what I wanted (in my case a mini-DVI to VGA adapter).
Are you seriously comparing the buying experience in Apple stores to Best Buy? To Fry’s? To Circuit City? Yes, if you lurk around an Apple store, you will find things that aren’t perfect. You, apparently, would rather deal with sotres where the Wi-Fi on the computers doesn’t work, where people have screwed around with the desktop and it will never be fixed. None of Apple’s competitors are held to task. Only Apple is tested, and it is compared only to perfection itself.
I’ve previously compared the shopping experience between Fry’s Electronics and an Apple Store here:
10 Ways Switching to a Mac Will Improve Your Life.
[...] I don’t know, I managed to take some pictures in my local Apple store. I had other problems, unfortunately. [...]
Two years ago I bought an IPod for my son’s birthday, the medium sized one with the little hard drive, for $200 bucks right, before they came out with the more dependable flash drive unit.
Pretty much right after the Apple software took over our computer the thing stopped working. Everytime we tried to re-boot it there was a cute little picture of an IPod with a sad face.
Of course there is no manual, you have to navigate through their ponderous help site. The very helpful sight told us it was dead. We called and talked to a tech. We told him about the sad face and he said that meant it was dead. Pretty technical so far.
We couldn’t exchange it for a new one because we had the thing for an excessively long time, about 6 weeks, which meant it had last for a reasonable amount of time. We could mail it in for exchange with a rebuilt one (one that had died like ours but been resurrected) or we could go to an Apple store.
We live in Maryland, with a population of around 4.5 million people. There are two Apple stores in the Baltimore-Annapolis region. We went to the one in Towson Mall. We got there around 7:30. They have no signs or directions inside the store - very hip.
We went to the back of the store and waited in line for around 20 minutes. When we got to the clerk and told him our problem he said that he was sorry but we had to come back some other day. You see the store was closing at 8:30 (though the mall closes at 9:00)
“Yeah?” I said. It was now 8:00.
“Well, you need to exchange this and all of our Geniuses are with customers. There isn’t enough time for a Genius to help you before we close.”
I expressed astonishment that Apple needs to hire real live geniuses to take a bad Ipod back and give a good (rebuilt, remember) Ipod back to the customer. His reply was essentially, tough shit, you want an Apple then you gotta pay the dues.
I gave the busted Ipod to away and they danced the dance to have it replace. My son uses an RCA flash drive MP3. Works great and doesn’t screw up the PC. And we don’t ever feel tempted to buy all the I-Shit that every merchant on the planet is hawking.
Sorry, Steve et al. You may be rich but your company sucks.
Oops sorry for the typos and the potty mouth.
At the store in Manchester the cash registers are (or where), iMacs… with a cash drawer underneath. I’m sure we could have missed them if the store was any larger. I really like that. Scan the barcode; “can I have a business receipt”, “of course sir” *tappy tap tap on the keyboard*, A4 full colour receipt comes out of printer in the desk; thank you very much, goodnight.
I thought it really says something when a company runs it’s business on it’s own products.
In Hawaii we have an expression, Aloha. You need MORE Aloha! We have an AWESOME genius bar in Honolulu. You sound way too stressed over headphones. Better yet; ever tried to buy your headphones at your local HP, Dell, or Toshiba bar? What do the girls look like there? Apple makes it very easy for me over here. Any time I want to resolve a problem I just go to the web site, book a time, show up and THEY trouble shoot it for me right there, not some back room somewhere. That is how to avoid long lines.If they cannot fix it they ship it FOR me to be repaired. I suppose you have already tried calling India with your high quality HP product issues and you already know you will spend an hour spelling your city and explaining what a zip code is. How about Sony, ever been to your local “Sony bar?” with your Sony headphones? Mahalo!
@23 Michael
Aloha is a tourist gimmick. Mahalo means: Give me tip.
Hawaii is full of rude, tip-hungry rednecks. I thought the impression would fade once i left Oahu for Kaua’i, but it just got WORSE.
Beautiful islands, sad, pissy, people.
“Toshiba bar? What do the girls look there”. What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t like asians?
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