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Apple Stores Will No Longer Offer 'Delivery With Setup' as Enjoy Files for Bankruptcy

Poor Ron Johnson can't catch a break. I have such respect for his efforts to reject the dehumanizing elements of modern retail -- but he keeps experiencing so much resistance.
 
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Pirate! said:
raise $250mm and less than a year later declare bankruptcy? What happened to that money? That’s a lot of burn in under a year for what sounds like a small business.
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I worked for a startup that enjoyed spending 10x on stuff that they really didn't need, but the money was there, so why not?
 
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lazyrighteye said:
Ron has been an easy target since leaving Apple. I get why. Still, his JC Penny concept was really interesting and progressive and could have positioned JC Penny for a more viable future. It was a bigger, long-term vision that appears neither the company, nor it's audience, could see. Their crack-like dependency on couponing wouldn't allow them to see beyond said coupons. That all struck me more right idea, wrong retailer - which is problematic as the CEO.

His in-home-delivery-and-setup concept is also super interesting. I can see why it garnered the VC funding it did. But man, the timing of a global pandemic did the opposite of helping the concept. I follow this stuff fairly closely and today is the first time I've heard about it. Oops. Too bad. Had potential.
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He made the fatal mistake of changing pricing right away instead of it being the last thing tackled. I’m still not sure it would have worked as people want sales, coupons and cash. Kohls will never move away from that.
 
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lazyrighteye said:
if that works foe them, I guess something as simple and sophisticated as Ron's vision never stood a chance.
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The issue, as I see it, is that Ron's vision for JCP did not match his customer's vision of JCP, and it failed to attract a new customer who was onboard.

He wanted to provide consumers with a valuable shopping experience free of complicated artifice (sales, coupons, rewards programs, etc), but didn't realize that the way current JCP customers perceived value was entirely bound to the artifice and its complication.

Meanwhile I found his changes in merchandising to be positive, but still mostly crap.
 
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lazyrighteye said:
Still, his JC Penny concept was really interesting and progressive and could have positioned JC Penny for a more viable future.
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LMAO. Found RJ's account. The guy who thought "no more sales" at a store that survives entirely on their sales marketing, was a good idea.

LMAO.
 
Enjoy sounds like a typical Kickstarter gone bad. “Thanks for the money guys, but this didn’t work out as we planned. Unforeseen circumstances, etc. See you in the next one!”
 
Zwhaler said:
Exactly. Shady! Could have paid $100M+ to "contractors" and "suppliers" for services but was really just funneling the money into insider's pockets. We may never know!
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They went public which was likely part of the problem, if shareholders sour in you, you are screwed. I’m sure the financials didn’t make sense since the pandemic.

Since they are public though, they have to file reports listing where the money went, so that is easy to find out.
 
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I think the problem with Ron Johnson's version of JCPenny was that you were getting the same clothes in a more nicer looking store, but you were paying much more.

And the whole idea of Enjoy seemed deeply flawed well before the pandemic, why would you want a stranger to come to your home and try to upsell crap to you?

The world doesn't need "disruption" in every faucet of our lives. Maybe we just want traditional retail; a business has the products and services we need at a reasonable price with reasonable quality and reasonable service. Why is that concept lost with businesses these days. Whatever happened to just serving customers?
 
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As others have said, letting strangers into your home in a pandemic was probably something that many people weren’t keen on doing.
 
lazyrighteye said:
Anyway, I can't remember the last time I thought about J.C. Penney's. Are they still a thing?
Oh wow. I just went to their site. What an eye-gouging, train wreck of awful. if that works foe them, I guess something as simple and sophisticated as Ron's vision never stood a chance.
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Yeah, they’re attached to a Mall (with mall rent) and look like they’re trying to be a WalMart… which is why some Malls have replaced JCP with actual WalMart’s and Targets. :)
 
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StuBeck said:
I've never had a good experience at an Apple store buying anything
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Like seriously, who praises the Apple store at all? It is by far the most miserable store to enter of any retail store in existence. Shoulder to shoulder with sweaty people who are just killing time by messing around with display devices, impossible to get help from anyone, and no organization to the store itself at all.
 
Macative said:
Like seriously, who praises the Apple store at all? It is by far the most miserable store to enter of any retail store in existence. Shoulder to shoulder with sweaty people who are just killing time by messing around with display devices, impossible to get help from anyone, and no organization to the store itself at all.
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“Shoulder to shoulder with sweaty people” is precisely what most stores in the mall dream of having. Which is why all the Microsoft stores, with their acres of space per person, are closed :)
 
It's too bad. It would have been the perfect solution for people like my mother if they had service in my area.
 
No5tromo said:
I know people who would pay to have someone else do this for them cause they find it too complicated
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Well, even though technology has become a lot more easier to use, it has also become more complex due to more and more features.

GUI, Touch control, Setup Assistants, auto-sensing connecting and configuring networked and physically attached peripherals, etc. has made life a lot easier.

OTOH, 2 things come from this too:
  1. More features means more buttons, different types of UI (multi-touch, haptic touch, force touch, tap, double tap, tap and hold then slide, etc.) to learn, which are great if you evolve with the technology... but give a new iPhone / iPad to a person > 50 and he will struggle to use the "more advanced tasks" which are deemed basic on a Mac / PC with keyboard and mouse.
  2. Disconnect from user with "what is really happening": What I mean with this, is that if the UI isn't able to guide the user to their goal, the user has no idea how to fix it, unless that user is a "nerd".
 
Rogifan said:
He made the fatal mistake of changing pricing right away instead of it being the last thing tackled. I’m still not sure it would have worked as people want sales, coupons and cash. Kohls will never move away from that.
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Indeed. Too much, too soon.

dasmb said:
The issue, as I see it, is that Ron's vision for JCP did not match his customer's vision of JCP, and it failed to attract a new customer who was onboard.
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Totally.
dasmb said:
He wanted to provide consumers with a valuable shopping experience free of complicated artifice (sales, coupons, rewards programs, etc), but didn't realize that the way current JCP customers perceived value was entirely bound to the artifice and its complication.
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Yep, nailed it. Couponing is a powerful ramification some enjoy with the fervor of casinos. TO me it's weird. But I'm not a JCP customer. Apparently, neither was Ron. 🤪
dasmb said:
Meanwhile I found his changes in merchandising to be positive, but still mostly crap.
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Hahaha. Love this. 😂
 
What a bummer. A week ago I spent a couple days on the Apple Store site trying to figure out which new Pro I wanted, and all delivery times were at least 5 weeks. After settling on the base 14" Pro (holy cats it's amazing) I got to the final step of the purchase and was suddenly given the option to have it delivered and set up for free the next day, literally 24 hours later. I thought it was too good to be true, but sure enough, "Cecila" hand-delivered it to me and I told her she could go grab a bite or something since I could set it up myself, since the appointment was slotted for two hours. We talked for a bit and she knew her stuff — all about Migration Assistant, etc. I was impressed. She said they trained for weeks specifically for Apple products.

It was probably the all-round-best, easiest, most seamless buying experience I've ever had. And I ain't no spring chicken no more.

I had no idea next- or even same-day delivery with setup was an option! I had never heard of Enjoy until I was about to hit the BUY button. And I was about to post it on the You Should Know subreddit today, too. :(
 
Man, it’s just damned disheartening to read all the hate against Johnson. I feel moved to break my multi-year lurking spree to defend him.

I think it’s entirely fair to critique his record Post-Apple, because frankly, it’s not great. Terrible even. But the fact is he created Apple Retail and the unique culture it enjoyed until his departure.

Most commenters here are Apple Consumers, but let me tell you as a multi-year Veteran of Apple Retail (and retail in general), Johnson created something truly special. From Credo Cards to Fearless Feedback he created an experience that was the envy of all retail workers at the time. And it wasn’t the pay or benefits. ;) Under his leadership, it was an absolute blast to work there and there was plenty of room for growth. People were proud to work there.

He wasn’t afraid to change what didn’t work, when the V1 store’s Theater concept (Steve’s idea) didn’t quite pan out, they could have just filled the space with more product, but instead created the Family Room concept and created programs like Sessions, One-to-One, and Apple Camp. When the Red Phone (again, Steve) proved to deliver poor employee and customer experience Johnson pushed to invest in employees and provide training and tools to do more in-store.

It’s not surprising that most of the reports of mistreatment and class action lawsuits occurred after he left. The culture has whithered without his leadership. The culture he created has eroded considerably and those that I know still there are leaving or are planning to. I remember when people would just go to the Apple Store to hang out and learn from whatever was happening that day or drop by to get help with some ridiculous iMovie bug that required a Byzantine work-around. People just go in for the free Internet now. It’s a shame, but things change.

Sadly, Johnson’s best years are likely behind him, but I think folks here are doing a serious injustice forgetting his value to Apple and the innovations he brought to retail. Hell, I was nothing and I had the chance to meet him several times and he left me with an impression of a guy who loves every facet of what he does. He also listened.

It’s easy to punch a man when he’s down. The cruel schadenfreude in this thread is nauseating. A shame.
 
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