The Apple Store Makes Me Not Hate Shopping
Here’s a nice post about the great one-on-one shopping experience you get when you’re at the Apple store (it includes an employee who uses a guide dog!). I went to the Apple store yesterday to pick up a new laptop (reader, yes, I bought AppleCare), and it was the most painless shopping experience I’ve ever had. It’s really terrific that every employee is a walking cashier now so that you don’t have to wait in line to pay, and equally amazing that you can check yourself out if you have an iPhone. It honestly makes me hate shopping a little less.
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Previously on The Billfold
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i have a love/hate relationship with apple in general over this. if you have an iphone, it is way, way, WAY too easy to buy everything, all of the things, every last one of them, from anywhere, really, anywhere at all. love this so much. also, hate.
I hate the Apple Store. It’s always packed with people and you have to make appointments for service-related things, which is dumb for a retail store. Also, accesories are really over-priced there and you can get the exact same things online for much cheaper.
Finally, it’s an enclosed space with no windows (at least in Portland) and is always full of disgusting, sweaty, smelly people. Depending on the time of year it will smell like sunscreen and sweat or just sweat. But maybe that’s just Portland, where people are generally gross-smelling.
@Reginal T. Squirge Apple knows that I hate them and therefore gives me terrible service, is what I’ve concluded.
I went there once to buy a gift card (which I now know you can buy at any grocery store. Ugh dumb)
I stood in a nice long line with lots of other lovely people for at least half an hour, and got to the front and was told this cash takes VISA only.
Seeing my look of aggravation/frustration, as well as hearing the other customers saying things like “oh poor girl” “that’s not right” (as we had all been wondering to each other whether the line took debit, it wasn’t clearly marked or marked at all), the nice apple guy said in front of all the other customers, Oh I’ll take you to the front of the line over here.
Then he left me at the back of the line over there.
ugh i’m going to be the lowliest slave in the apple empire.
Ha, when I bought something at the Apple store a few weeks ago and an employee asked me if I wanted to download the App to check myself out, I thought “Are you f@#king kidding me? There are 10 employees just standing around rolling their eyes at the old people needing help with their computers.” That said, they were very helpful in find a case for my 3GS and didn’t make me feel too uncool for having an older phone.
that’s nice that the apple store near you was fun, but like with any company, it doesn’t mean that apple as a whole is awesome or that their stores are all filled with happy personal shoppers who want to make your day. like most retail chains, it varies from location to location.
i, for example, have never had a worse shopping experience than at a nearby apple store, trying to get my iphone. the line for the iphones was separate from everything else and they had like 2 people working the line so even though there weren’t that many people it still took more than 45 minutes just for me to be helped in the first place. and this is while i watched other people who wanted a mac or a different product walk in half an hour after me and snag a sales person immediately. then it took a ton more time to get everything set up because despite the fact that he was working the iphone specfic line, the dude helping me seemed to have no idea what he was doing, with the phone and plan set-up.
absolutely the worst shopping experience. i will never go to the apple store again.
Yes, but don’t you think it’s increasingly getting easier and easier to spend your money?