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cparktd

macrumors member
Mar 7, 2009
84
4
Middle TN
It makes good sense especially if they have the existing room. I sure they will look at this store by store, with capacity and demand in mind. People love their Prime deliveries, this might even increase sales, especially impulse buying. If you put something in your cart and then see it will be a week or weeks delivery you might balk vs get it in a day or so. I know I have in the past.
 

genovelle

macrumors 68020
May 8, 2008
2,098
2,674
I wonder if they plan to re-open South Florida stores anytime soon? Everything else is open, yet they've kept the stores closed.

Surely they can open with proper precautions in place?
It may because of the laxness of the population in regard to following the safety guidelines and how hard it may be to keep their employees safe. Here in Louisiana we have an issue with that too. It’s not uncommon to go somewhere and people are not following the guidelines or wearing masks. I just leave.
 
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LonestarOne

macrumors 65816
Sep 13, 2019
1,072
1,422
McKinney, TX
Last I checked, Best Buy is doing better than ever. People thinking they are on the verge of filing for bankruptcy are ignorant to the market and adoptions made.

Yeah, right. :)

 

burgman

macrumors 68030
Sep 24, 2013
2,697
2,287
Apple has a long way to go to catch up with Amazon and Walmart. I recently ordered new Mini, elected to pay $8 for "faster shipping" and it's still going to take nearly 4 weeks to ship to me (from China). I think their supply chain is broken when I need to put a credit card in front of them before they issue an order to BEGIN production by a Chinese manufacturer. Do they even have a STOCK to sell from other than discontinued (refurbished) products? An eBay seller is faster.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE their products but what seems to be important to them (color?) is not the same as I.

Using retail stores implies that their channel will stock a product for fast delivery. As it his now, I have begun to look for products coming directly from China and accepting their longer delivery time over direct purchases from Manufacturers because they CAN'T deliver.

Doubt me? Try configuring/ordering a system from Apple and just witness the wait times before you finalize a purchase.
Perhaps you heard about a virus shut everything down for months.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I can't help thinking this comes at a perfect time when boarders being blocked and shipping takes ages... Any other time, this would have been' off' the cards. I doubt many would have needed this pre-COVID.
 

InGen

Suspended
Jun 22, 2020
275
935
Personally, I enjoy receiving a product direct from the factory and knowing which city it originated from. And with a zero chance the box was previously returned by another customer.
All Apple returns are sold as refurbished even if it’s only 1 day used and nothing is ever resold as “new” by their own guidelines from my understanding
 

s66

Suspended
Dec 12, 2016
472
661
Aside of those located in suburban US malls, many of those stores (all I know out here in Europe) are in downtown city locations where access by road is extremely hard to next to impossible.
So using at least some of those locations as a distribution hub is utter madness in my book. All you'll get is the device stuck twice in traffic for hours in a row and a way overpriced location to keep stock at.
IMHO it's much, much better to keep stock (even for those stores, not just for distribution to homes/businesses) outside of the cities.

Even in the US they have stores like on 5th Ave in NYC, that seem like really bad choices to do deliveries from outside of Manhattan.
 

alherb

macrumors newbie
Apr 20, 2018
18
9
Base configurations are delivered to me in 2 business days. Store pickup same-day. CTO configs are delivered in 7-8 business days. Nothing taking 4 weeks for me in the US.

2 Days? Ordered on: Sep 29, 2020, Delivers: Oct 13 - Oct 15 by Express Delivery. I paid the $8 extra for faster delivery.
 
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jgoodmanjr

macrumors newbie
Nov 14, 2013
16
4
Base configurations are delivered to me in 2 business days. Store pickup same-day. CTO configs are delivered in 7-8 business days. Nothing taking 4 weeks for me in the US.

I’ve been looking at getting a 13 inch MBP, fully customized. It will take almost a month to get to me. I figured it was due to Covid, but either way, it is still a long time IMO.
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,471
California
And this illustrates why Apple should look at buying Target. Then they could take it to Amazon and have more value for the “Apple One” eg “Apple Prime”
Why on earth would apple want to be in such a low margin business? What about Apple’s history makes you think they have any interest in selling toothpaste and socks?
 
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Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
The free AirPods and a keyboard shipped separately from the rest of a recent order I placed, and I was a bit surprised that the origin tracking locations weren’t distribution centers I’d seen stuff shipped from before. Could be a coincidence, but both had Apple retail stores very close to the origin depot so maybe this is why. Would make sense, particularly for small peripheral items.

Build-to-order choices will have to continue coming from a central location or from China, of course.
Not always China! I discovered with that order that CTO iMacs can in fact ship direct from Apple’s Ireland factory. I’m used to getting laptops direct from China, so I was very surprised to see the origin scan in Ireland. When I looked it up, it turns out that they do indeed maintain an iMac plant there to this day. Until then I had no idea that facility was still actually building hardware.
 
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visualride

macrumors member
Nov 21, 2014
48
42
Considering that the new iPhones typically don't actually get shipped to a location within 50 miles of Apple HQ till late December, I was expecting to receive my new iPhone in January. Hopefully now I might still get it by just after Xmas.
 

G5isAlive

Contributor
Aug 28, 2003
2,459
4,244
I can see how this might help Apple, though it seems to me to be going from a 'ship it once' to 'ship it twice' model (first ship from the manufacturer than to you). Perhaps its cheaper to ship in bulk from china versus individual packages. Or maybe they are trying to reduce their dependence on China.

The down side to me is, if it looks like its taking too long to ship from china, I look to see if there is inventory in stock nearby. I don't imagine everyone does this, so local inventory stays higher. Now Apple will do it for you, reducing local inventory.
 

compwiz1202

macrumors 604
May 20, 2010
7,389
5,739
I can see how this might help Apple, though it seems to me to be going from a 'ship it once' to 'ship it twice' model (first ship from the manufacturer than to you). Perhaps its cheaper to ship in bulk from china versus individual packages. Or maybe they are trying to reduce their dependence on China.

The down side to me is, if it looks like its taking too long to ship from china, I look to see if there is inventory in stock nearby. I don't imagine everyone does this, so local inventory stays higher. Now Apple will do it for you, reducing local inventory.
Heck last year I was able to find on in store on apple.com on day 2. As long as you aren't dead set on a certain one and are willing to travel some, you will probably be able to find something in store fairly quickly anymore.
 

DexBell

Suspended
Oct 23, 2016
839
1,068


Apple is planning to use its retail store locations as distribution centers to ship products to consumers more quickly, reports Bloomberg. This would be a departure from the current strategy that sees products shipped from warehouses or direct from China.

applestorepaloalto.jpg

Items that are in stock are now able to be shipped from a network of close to 300 stores across the United States and Canada, and Apple told staff members that this will allow the company to offer faster delivery times for customers who live closer to stores than the distribution centers.Depending on what's purchased, some orders will be delivered as soon as a day after a customer places an order, with Apple planning to ship through FedEx in the United States and United Parcel Service in Canada.

The direct from store shipping will be available to customers who live within 100 miles of an Apple retail location, but customers will not be able to choose a ship-from-store option nor will customers be aware when a device is shipped from a store. Choosing where to ship an item from will be handled internally by Apple's operation team.

According to Bloomberg, Apple started testing the new shipping program with a small number of stores when store locations began reopening earlier this year, and has since expanded it, but not all retail stores in the U.S. and Canada are participating.

Apple on Tuesday plans to announce new iPhone 12 models and a smaller HomePod, plus there are other major products on the horizon such as Apple Silicon Macs and AirPods Studio, so some customers who purchase these devices could see quicker deliveries. Apple in September launched the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE, but most initial orders of these devices appeared to ship direct from China rather than retail stores.

Apple's shift to store-based shipping will provide a way for Apple to make use of Apple retail locations that have remained closed due to the ongoing global health crisis. Bloomberg says that Apple is also considering converting some stores into online support or sales call centers should those stores need to be shuttered again.

Article Link: Apple to Use Retail Stores as Distribution Centers for Faster Deliveries

Already doing this here in California for over a year. Ordered a magic keyboard and it was delivered to my door in 2 hours from an Apple store about 4 miles away. They use Postmates.
 

zed1291

macrumors regular
Jun 4, 2010
200
238
NYC
That scenario is specifically why Apple policy as of 2017 is now to open all non-opened hero products upon return and send them back to the warehouse regardless of if under previous policy a closed box return and then later sale of the product could happen. Closed box return is still possible for small items like lightning cables. In that story, the problem was a single employee sucking at his/her job and not knowing policy.
 

zed1291

macrumors regular
Jun 4, 2010
200
238
NYC
Not true. Apple retail stores do resell returns so long as the box appears unopened.
I edited my original comment to be more accurate, but as of 2017 Apple stores are no longer allowed to return hero products as closed box returns.
 

JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
12,442
22,999
That scenario is specifically why Apple policy as of 2017 is now to open all non-opened hero products upon return and send them back to the warehouse regardless of if under previous policy a closed box return and then later sale of the product could happen. Closed box return is still possible for small items like lightning cables. In that story, the problem was a single employee sucking at his/her job and not knowing policy.

I agree and I would rather not rely on a retail employee for such an important step. If my iPhone is shipped from Zhengzhou, there is 0% chance of that happening.
 

crisss1205

macrumors 6502a
Oct 7, 2008
930
267
NYC
Yeah, right. :)


That was months ago and at the peak of the pandemic. All retailers were closing....
 

LonestarOne

macrumors 65816
Sep 13, 2019
1,072
1,422
McKinney, TX
That was months ago and at the peak of the pandemic. All retailers were closing....

Best Buy was in trouble long before the pandemic.

 
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