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Apple Revolutionizing Retail
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).'"
That I want to order one, and ship it too me? 1984 style!
Do you have concerns
For your privacy
In this modern age
Of technology?
With corporations
Buying your souls?
Well push those worries in a deep dark hole!
Cause Apple's doin it, and they're okay
They'll treat your information right every day
Yeah, Apple's doin it, so it can't be wrong
And that's the end of my stupid song.
A friend got an iPod shuffle for a gift last week and decided he didn't want it.
The Apple store wouldn't accept the return. It was sealed, clearly hadn't been touched. But the store employees just said "Sorry, we don't accept on those things".
Which goes to show, even Apple doesn't want the shuffle.
Pay no attention to that van across the street with the dish pointed at your store....
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Wireless sniffer software: free as in speech
Pringles can: $1.59
parking spot downtown: $6/h
iPod: $100
Rest of my Christmas shopping: priceless.
> 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).
Since I'm not already a registered Apple customer, any clerktrooper asking me for my email, snail address, or any other data not required to complete the transaction when I try to purchase products gets the old Jedi Mind Trick: you place an appropriate number of Federal Reserve Notes (or other bits of nicely-decorated paper) in your hand, wave your hand in front of the clerk, and you say "You don't need to see my identification".
If it works, the clerktrooper realized they're more interested in the pretty paper in your hand than the toy - so you leave the paper behind and walk out with a shiny new toy.
If it doesn't work, you keep the pretty paper and leave a confused clerktrooper holding the toy.
It's a self-reinforcing system. The Empire demands that clerktroopers ask for identification -- but clerktroopers who follow orders and resist the Jedi Mind Trick ultimately find themselves scheduled for termination. The tighter the Imperial grip, the more sales slip through their fingers.
What's next will be that software will come with your computer even if you don't need it or want it. You'll pay for it when you pay for the computer, even if you don't need it. Oh... wait, nevermind, Microsoft beat them to that one.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
-Mitch Hedberg
It was like *beep beep beep* and like, my money was gone!
What will be bad is when the information flows for those two systems get crossed.
You'll go through the booth, a cop will pull you over and demand you get off the freeway, but he'll hand you your new iPod. Probably with C. W. McCall's "4 Wheel Drive" already installed.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
if you're seriously worried about accidentally signing into the Apple store, activating 1-click purchasing, configuring a PowerMac, ordering it, and not cancelling the order... then just step away from your internets now and seek medical attention.
WOW! Re-vo-lu-tion! You mean like the ones waiters in Europe have been using for *ages*? It's actually kind of nice because they do not take your credit card back to the register. They swipe it at your table and hand it back to you.
What's even funnier is that those "wireless gizmos for scanning credit cards" are powered by a version of Windows CE. So, apparently, Apple's retail "revolution" is brought to you by the Microsoft corporation.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Dude, where do you work? I thought every company was mired in soul-killing antiproductive bureaucracy.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
In reply to another person's comment, if my customers ever feel insulted by the "Genius Bar" name, I always tell them that it doesn't say which side of the bar the Genius is on.
That was supposed to be irony? Who are you, Alanis Morissette?