Thats BS - Who is going to train them??, only 1 or 2 people in the store knows Apple products
- Ok maybe 3
apparently only one or two people know grammar in the forums as well
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Best Buy to Provide iPads to All Retail Employees?
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apparently only one or two people know grammar in the forums as well
I would have thought that selling billions and billions of songs on iTunes, along with all those iPhone App Store sales would have accounted for something?
To little to late...
It makes sense that using the iPad in stores would create what appears to be a hip, current and now scene. Kinda creating a vibe of the place you want to buy your gadgets.
However... When you're in the business of selling items that are not essential to every day life, you need tend to target those with more discretionary spending. It puzzles me why Best Buy would donate $100,000.00 to anti gay candidate Tom Emmer of Minnesota. It was a calculated move, and not a wise one since he lost the race and Best Buy alienated a group of people, myself included, that have a desire for the latest gadgets and without the added expense of kids and their college funds, larger than normal funds with which to spend on said gadgets.
I bought my flat screen tv from Sears, my laptop directly from Apple as I did my iPod touch, AirPort and software. The Printer/Fax/Scanner came from Walmart, and my two soon to be ordered iPad2's will also come from the Apple store. The annoying cables and odds and ends came from Radio Shack. Oh yeah, I had my car stereo replaced at a local shop with better speakers to boot... In the past year i have spend a little over $7,000 in electronics. Not one penny at Best Buy.
Yeah, iPads in the hands of employees is a cute gimmick, it got them on this site, but it's not gonna get them in my house.
It makes sense that using the iPad in stores would create what appears to be a hip, current and now scene. Kinda creating a vibe of the place you want to buy your gadgets.
However... When you're in the business of selling items that are not essential to every day life, you need tend to target those with more discretionary spending. It puzzles me why Best Buy would donate $100,000.00 to anti gay candidate Tom Emmer of Minnesota. It was a calculated move, and not a wise one since he lost the race and Best Buy alienated a group of people, myself included, that have a desire for the latest gadgets and without the added expense of kids and their college funds, larger than normal funds with which to spend on said gadgets.
I bought my flat screen tv from Sears, my laptop directly from Apple as I did my iPod touch, AirPort and software. The Printer/Fax/Scanner came from Walmart, and my two soon to be ordered iPad2's will also come from the Apple store. The annoying cables and odds and ends came from Radio Shack. Oh yeah, I had my car stereo replaced at a local shop with better speakers to boot... In the past year i have spend a little over $7,000 in electronics. Not one penny at Best Buy.
Yeah, iPads in the hands of employees is a cute gimmick, it got them on this site, but it's not gonna get them in my house.
They are using them in the Black concept store on Birmingham ( Currys and PC world gadget shop ). The shop assistants walk round with them in their shoulder slung pouches. Not all staff have them though, but enough to be noticed.
Nowadays whenever I go into the shopping mall closest to my home I'm accosted by a dead-eyed drone carrying an iPad standing next to the digital map of the mall. Neither one is as effective as an actual, honest-to-God sign. Now I have to avoid Best Buy for the same reason? Fantastic.
That said, it would be pretty sweet if they adopted Square for transactions.
That said, it would be pretty sweet if they adopted Square for transactions.
Great, so now instead of it just being next to impossible to get help at a Best Buy, it will be impossible since they will all be busy playing angry birds.
Makes sense
As others have said there will only be iPads in any given Best Buy for use by the sales staff while on the sales floor. There will not be iPads given out for personal use as this would not make any sense.
The benefits are that using an iPad to lookup information on an item or check to see if it is in stock is an important sales tool. This is where I can see the benefits of using it. Use of an iPad in such cases would likely result in many more sales. This is a win-win scenario for both Best Buy and Apple.
Once other retailers see the benefits of using it will only result in more sales. I can imagine restaurants and bars improving their sales with using iPads as well.
As others have said there will only be iPads in any given Best Buy for use by the sales staff while on the sales floor. There will not be iPads given out for personal use as this would not make any sense.
The benefits are that using an iPad to lookup information on an item or check to see if it is in stock is an important sales tool. This is where I can see the benefits of using it. Use of an iPad in such cases would likely result in many more sales. This is a win-win scenario for both Best Buy and Apple.
Once other retailers see the benefits of using it will only result in more sales. I can imagine restaurants and bars improving their sales with using iPads as well.
They use ipads everywhere at disney parks for getting live ride queue information and whatnot (we have seen them in action, and they seem very effective). They can also be used for language translation.
I would imagine use in a mall or best buy is quite effective as 1) no keyboard necessary, 2) live interactive data with their respective backend systems allowing for more complex questions than just a map, 3) and in best buy's case creates gadget envy and convey a general gadget use/understanding that non-techies appreciate.
Even minor things such as 'do you have this movie in blu ray' and whatnot require them to now chase down a terminal somewhere.
I would imagine use in a mall or best buy is quite effective as 1) no keyboard necessary, 2) live interactive data with their respective backend systems allowing for more complex questions than just a map, 3) and in best buy's case creates gadget envy and convey a general gadget use/understanding that non-techies appreciate.
Even minor things such as 'do you have this movie in blu ray' and whatnot require them to now chase down a terminal somewhere.
Yes.Don't know why people would thinl you get to take it home and put anything you want on it.
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I have a hard time believing a retail store, especially BB, is going to give out $500 devices to 99% of their USA retail staff. That's a LOT of money to be spent...and for what gain exactly? And there was an article on MR this week about how retail stores barely sell any iPads...that it's just advertising so people will go to Apple.com or an Apple store. Personally I think a very low % of people buy Apple products from BB.
However, if it is true, are they allowed to bring them home so they can show them to friends and family? Either way, if they all had them in their hands at the store or away from the store, that's huge, free advertising for Apple.
But again, iPads REQUIRE computers...so not sure how the whole activation thing is going to work as well as weekly/monthly syncs/updates/maintenance/new apps/etc.
Great concept (probably by Apple)...but huge price even if it a $250 cost for even 100,000 people (about 1/2 the people instead of the 180,000 they employ). That's $25million that BB is going to spend...to get back what exactly? Unless Apple decides to give them away for free (yea, right). Retail stores don't spend $25-$50million in product pitches to hope to sell $30-$70million in same-product sales. Retail stores are extremely tight with their money.
I can, however, see Apple giving away free iPads to all THEIR Apple retail employees...just like the iPhone in the past.
However, if it is true, are they allowed to bring them home so they can show them to friends and family? Either way, if they all had them in their hands at the store or away from the store, that's huge, free advertising for Apple.
But again, iPads REQUIRE computers...so not sure how the whole activation thing is going to work as well as weekly/monthly syncs/updates/maintenance/new apps/etc.
Great concept (probably by Apple)...but huge price even if it a $250 cost for even 100,000 people (about 1/2 the people instead of the 180,000 they employ). That's $25million that BB is going to spend...to get back what exactly? Unless Apple decides to give them away for free (yea, right). Retail stores don't spend $25-$50million in product pitches to hope to sell $30-$70million in same-product sales. Retail stores are extremely tight with their money.
I can, however, see Apple giving away free iPads to all THEIR Apple retail employees...just like the iPhone in the past.
if you don't like best buy's service don't f'in go there. As an employee maybe we get irritated at the completely retarded questions you guys ask. If you consistently think you're right, then what use is it to waste my time arguing with you. I know plenty of people that love to shop at my store, and the people that have told me they don't never buy anything anyways. There's always the internet, check out their customer service.
How would sales improve? They wouldn't. What would possibly improve is the speediness of getting in and out of the restaurant and hence more volume of people and hence hopefully more sales. That's kind of a stretch.
Numerous restaurants have begun over the past 5 years these credit-card machines that they leave at your table when you are done with your meal. You pay and leave rather than flag down your waiter, wait 4 mins for the bill, give him your card, wait 4 mins for him to return. So 8-10 mins can easily be shaved which allows possibly more volume (if you have a restaurant that is always busy...this new process doesn't help for restaurants that have 0 wait).
Also, not all waiters are going to want to hold a 10" device (the size of a menu in reality) everywhere they go. It's a bit impractical. And if it gets dropped, $500+ down the toilet. Lovely.
What would be neat would be to have a retaurant whose tables/bar area has the iPad embedded into the table so that you can sit and order your stuff directly from it...and the waiter just comes over when something is ordered. I think I heard of a few restaurants doing that. Kinda cool if you don't want yappy waiters bothering you all night.
As has been pointed out thousands of times,those stores only reason for existence it to make iPods,iPhones etc.more attractive.If you look at the actual financial reports content and app sales contribute a trivial amount to the bottom line.Waaaay below hardware,retail stores and their own software(OS X,Aperture,etc.).
I'll never understand why people think otherwise,especially considering the number of free apps that are hosted and downloaded at zero cost to developers.If the were as greedy as people thing there would be no free apps.
LOL I had a BB employee tell me last year(after iPad wifi and before iPad 3G)that"Nobody knows it,but the 3G will have a camera!I'm gonna crack open my wifi and slap a camera in there,there's a space for it."
So-there are plenty of retards working there too.I wouldn't shop there if my ass was on fire and they had the only fire extinguishers in town.
Would not bet that they'll be in business in 3 years either.
