Apple Expanding 'Express' Retail Store Setup That Offers Safer Purchase Options

[MacRumors]

Apple is planning to expand a new "Express" store format that will make it easier and safer for customers to purchase new Apple devices, including the iPhone 12 lineup, reports Reuters.

Image via PopVox co-founder and CEO Marci Harris on Twitter​

The Express store format features a wall built around the front of the main Apple Store with temporary sales counters that are protected by plexiglass, similar to a bank. There are shelves of accessories behind store employees, and customers can pick up items at stores after ordering online, or talk with Apple's staff for help.

Apple has been using curbside pickup in some areas where there are serious coronavirus outbreaks, but Apple's retail chief Deirdre O'Brien told Reuters that curbside pickup doesn't work well in shopping malls and downtown shopping centers where the "curb" is far from the store location.

For these situations, the Express format is preferred. Apple has been testing it at 20 stores in the United States and Europe, and is expanding it to 50 by the end of the month.

"It's a swifter way for us to serve customers," O'Brien said. "It allows us to maintain all the appropriate social distancing and maintain all of our health protocols within our stores."

There's no specific list on Apple's site with stores that have the Express setup, but one of the first stores to get the new setup was Apple Burlingame in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Throughout the pandemic, Apple has been closing and reopening stores as needed when cases in a particular area spike. Apple stores that are reopened have cleaning and social distancing policies in place and require customers to wear masks and get a temperature check before entering the store.

Article Link: Apple Expanding 'Express' Retail Store Setup That Offers Safer Purchase Options

 

[symphony]

Only Apple would make something extra like this............maybe

 

[DotCom2]

This is our future, unfortunately. Not bad though really.

 

[macsplusmacs]

Cool.

I hate tracking down employees to check me out.

Yah I know there is that other option but sometimes it does not work.

 

[smithrh]

About time - virus or no virus, if you knew what you wanted to buy, the physical Apple store experience was terrible.

Find the guy that was arranging for employees to help customers

Tell him what you needed

Get assigned to someone, wait

Talk to that person, and likely have to put up with someone who knows less than you do

They get someone to bring the item you want to you

You buy it

This will hopefully shortcut that lousy experience.

 

[itsmilo]

Apple is the only store here in Germany that is a little over the top. It almost seems to be done on purpose for hype. Everyone has to wait outside and wait for a personal genius and then you need to get your fever checked and what not. No one else does it. When I picked up my Apple Watch, I wasn’t even allowed to go into the store to look around. That would have been yet another queue ...

 

[chscag]

You would think all that would hurt sales, but apparently it hasn't.

 

[Royksöpp]

That looks looks like dookie. It's very difficult to make Apple products look cheap, but they certainly have here. Those boxes look so sad.

 

[iReality85]

About time - virus or no virus, if you knew what you wanted to buy, the physical Apple store experience was terrible.

Find the guy that was arranging for employees to help customers

Tell him what you needed

Get assigned to someone, wait

Talk to that person, and likely have to put up with someone who knows less than you do

They get someone to bring the item you want to you

You buy it

This will hopefully shortcut that lousy experience.

This is exactly me: I'm a man on a mission. I go in, I know exactly what I need, I get it, I leave. I don't want to deal with hunting down or waiting for a store employee to ring me out. I've had to wait 10 minutes sometimes, standing right next to the accessories, for service (everyone was busy). Could have been in and out in a minute.

And standing amid a throng of people these days doesn't thrill me.

 

[Zammir]

Can’t wait for safe reopens

 

[mailman199]

These might become a permeant fixture in the stores

 

[Apple_Robert]

I wonder if this new setup will be applied to a store located inside a mall, like mine.

 

[mcdawg]

The photo makes this look like some schlocky airport kiosk selling Bose headphones and overpriced phone chargers.

 

[Arran]

Apple retail made its mark by welcoming everyone into it's stores and just letting them play with all the beautiful goodies. Stay as long as you want. No obligation.

With this they've gone too far in the opposite direction. It's like buying a hotdog from a food cart. Purely transactional: "look buddy, do you want it or not?"

 

[mcdawg]

Plus, Apple is way late to the game with this laughable bubble-world concept. Everybody else realizes that, while this virus will be around kicking for a while, like all viruses do, the dempanic over this all will finally wrap up on or shortly after November 4th.

 

[mcdawg]

 

[Arran]

Apple is the only store here in Germany that is a little over the top. It almost seems to be done on purpose for hype. Everyone has to wait outside and wait for a personal genius and then you need to get your fever checked and what not. No one else does it. When I picked up my Apple Watch, I wasn’t even allowed to go into the store to look around. That would have been yet another queue ...

Apple does that here in the US too. Picked up my watch - Same exact process. It actually went really smooth. No crowd. No wait.

 

[hidekigomi]

For people who want products RIGHT AWAY? Their shipping of online orders is still good, I think??

 

[X--X]

About time - virus or no virus, if you knew what you wanted to buy, the physical Apple store experience was terrible.

Find the guy that was arranging for employees to help customers

Tell him what you needed

Get assigned to someone, wait

Talk to that person, and likely have to put up with someone who knows less than you do

They get someone to bring the item you want to you

You buy it

This will hopefully shortcut that lousy experience.

OR order online and get it the same day, or next.

Stores are a useless waste of time – if you already know what you want.

Transforming stores into sort of fancy vending machines is stupid because it makes them obsolete even faster. Safe the money and just permanently close them....OR keep them as they are because that is the USP (unique selling point) of physical stores.

.

 

[tonywalk]

The UK has been doing this since before Apple was a twinkle in their Founders' eyes. And, it's a five letter word beginning with A.

Step forward Argos. Your time has come (again).

 

[dawhol9]

About time - virus or no virus, if you knew what you wanted to buy, the physical Apple store experience was terrible.

Find the guy that was arranging for employees to help customers

Tell him what you needed

Get assigned to someone, wait

Talk to that person, and likely have to put up with someone who knows less than you do

They get someone to bring the item you want to you

You buy it

This will hopefully shortcut that lousy experience.

This is exactly me: I'm a man on a mission. I go in, I know exactly what I need, I get it, I leave. I don't want to deal with hunting down or waiting for a store employee to ring me out. I've had to wait 10 minutes sometimes, standing right next to the accessories, for service (everyone was busy). Could have been in and out in a minute.

And standing amid a throng of people these days doesn't thrill me.

you do know for years...you can open the apple store app..scan the product...pay with a credit card attached to iTunes...and walk out. you didnt even need to talk to anyone. now in the covid era thats not possible..but pre-covid...if you knew what u wanted and it was on the shelf..you could self checkout.

 

[smithrh]

you do know for years...you can open the apple store app..scan the product...pay with a credit card attached to iTunes...and walk out. you didnt even need to talk to anyone. now in the covid era thats not possible..but pre-covid...if you knew what u wanted and it was on the shelf..you could self checkout.

Nope. Try that with an iPhone, iMac, MBP....

 

[jonpodner]

I'm hoping they bring it to the Apple stores in St. Louis they've been closed forever and it's driving me nuts. Online does't work it's going to take me weeks and weeks to get my new iPad. There is an experience one gets when buying an Apple product at an Apple Store. It's not the same online or at your local Walmart.

 

[jonpodner]

Nope. Try that with an iPhone, iMac, MBP....

I can see things being sotolen from Apple. I've seen stores do that during the holidays where it's really busy but they have employees watching them.

 

[glsillygili]

you do know for years...you can open the apple store app..scan the product...pay with a credit card attached to iTunes...and walk out. you didnt even need to talk to anyone. now in the covid era thats not possible..but pre-covid...if you knew what u wanted and it was on the shelf..you could self checkout.

What shelves? Mostly everything on Apples shelves now are for show. The only thing have now are their first party cases.