Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
In-store reservation process on 9/25
- Thread starter kjotwani
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think it'll be fine. Last year with the 6 I reserved and they were going along the reserve line asking for names. That way, if you were there for ages, they'd know that you arrived at the correct time anyway.
Oh and not sure where you got three hours from. They keep it for 24 hours if not it goes into the regular stock pile and anyone can then buy it.
No one knows for sure how they are going to handle this. Some say 24 hours and some 3. It's all open to debate.
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/21/no-walk-in-iphone-6s-sales-scalpers/
While Apple has ended launch-day pre-orders and in-store reservations for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the company is suggesting that those customers still intent on purchasing one on launch day visit an Apple retail store Friday for a chance at scoring some of the remaining launch-day stock at those locations. But for customers in four U.S. states, China, Japan, and Hong Kong, these walk-in sales are not an option, notes The Oregonian.
The disclosure was made in a footnote on Apple's press release this morning making a final announcement about Friday's launch plans and reporting record adoption of iOS 9: "iPhone is available by reservation only in China, Hong Kong, Japan and US stores in tax-free states."
The four U.S. states with Apple retail stores that are affected by this policy include Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Alaska. Montana is the fifth U.S. state without a statewide sales tax, but Apple does not have any retail stores located in the state.
The reason behind the ban on walk-in sales in these states is likely their attractiveness to scalpers.Because Apple limits the number of unlocked phones, the brokers – sometimes called "sharks" – recruit homeless people and the elderly to wait in line and buy phones on their behalf. The phenomenon lasted for months outside Apple's downtown Portland Apple Store after last year's September launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
While sharks patrol Apple stores all over the country, they are especially visible in Portland. That may be because Oregon doesn't have a sales tax, so sharks operating here can add several percentage points to their profits by getting their phones.Hong Kong has long been a popular location for iPhone scalpers to operate as they attempt to move gray-market phones into China, but with China having taken on increased importance for Apple and in fact being included in the first wave of iPhone 6s launches, both countries are likely in Apple's crosshairs this time around as it hopes to limit those snapping up limited supplies of the new devices to resell for significant profits.
While Apple has ended launch-day pre-orders and in-store reservations for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the company is suggesting that those customers still intent on purchasing one on launch day visit an Apple retail store Friday for a chance at scoring some of the remaining launch-day stock at those locations. But for customers in four U.S. states, China, Japan, and Hong Kong, these walk-in sales are not an option, notes The Oregonian.
The disclosure was made in a footnote on Apple's press release this morning making a final announcement about Friday's launch plans and reporting record adoption of iOS 9: "iPhone is available by reservation only in China, Hong Kong, Japan and US stores in tax-free states."
The four U.S. states with Apple retail stores that are affected by this policy include Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Alaska. Montana is the fifth U.S. state without a statewide sales tax, but Apple does not have any retail stores located in the state.
The reason behind the ban on walk-in sales in these states is likely their attractiveness to scalpers.Because Apple limits the number of unlocked phones, the brokers – sometimes called "sharks" – recruit homeless people and the elderly to wait in line and buy phones on their behalf. The phenomenon lasted for months outside Apple's downtown Portland Apple Store after last year's September launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
While sharks patrol Apple stores all over the country, they are especially visible in Portland. That may be because Oregon doesn't have a sales tax, so sharks operating here can add several percentage points to their profits by getting their phones.Hong Kong has long been a popular location for iPhone scalpers to operate as they attempt to move gray-market phones into China, but with China having taken on increased importance for Apple and in fact being included in the first wave of iPhone 6s launches, both countries are likely in Apple's crosshairs this time around as it hopes to limit those snapping up limited supplies of the new devices to resell for significant profits.
I'm sure it will be. Last time they did reservations, you weren't assigned a time slot, so it was a free for all.
The sharks were very aggressive in NYC, they were offering me the 6 plus for $100 over retail while I was ***INSIDE*** the apple store on 5th. It happened 3-4 times to me.. totally shameless
What I am wondering if the check-in process will cause delays for the people who have later reservation time.
I.e. Person A have reservation at 10:00 AM and Person B at 10:30 AM. Person A arrive on time at 10:00 AM, but took 40 minutes to finish the transactions (fill out credit app, done the credit check, activate the phone in store, etc.) Person B will now not be seen until 10:40 AM.
If there are many people reserving it, then the delay will become a domino effect. I.e. The person with 12 PM reservation time can potentially have to wait until 2 PM.
I.e. Person A have reservation at 10:00 AM and Person B at 10:30 AM. Person A arrive on time at 10:00 AM, but took 40 minutes to finish the transactions (fill out credit app, done the credit check, activate the phone in store, etc.) Person B will now not be seen until 10:40 AM.
If there are many people reserving it, then the delay will become a domino effect. I.e. The person with 12 PM reservation time can potentially have to wait until 2 PM.
If they expect me to do this upgrade program every year, Apple better make this as painless as possible. I'm not planning on waiting past an hour of my reservation time to be taken care of. I will get there 5 or 10 minutes before my 1pm reservation. If I'm still waiting by 2pm for someone to acknowledge me I'm gone. I'll just do the iPhone Forever through Sprint online and have the phone delivered to my house every year. They have one shot at getting this program going and if not, no ones going to want to be part of it if it's an inconvenience.
ill believe you, since we live in the same city. my gf bday is friday and i won't have time to wait all day after work to get my phone.
This is something I was curious about as well. I'm in NYC this week seeing family, decided to get an appt to pick up my new phone instead of having it deliverd to an empty door.
Anyways, last time I bought a phone at the 5th ave store, stood in like for 9 hours... I want to be able to go in at my 10 am appt time and be out before lunch.
Anyways, last time I bought a phone at the 5th ave store, stood in like for 9 hours... I want to be able to go in at my 10 am appt time and be out before lunch.
That makes no sense. I went to my Apple Store today, they said one line for reservations and one for In store pickup and one for walk ins. I said can a walk in, in the front of the line get a phone before me (8am reservation) she said no. Walk ins will get a resorvation and it won't be for early morning. It will be like taking a number ticket at a DMV. Since I have a 8am resorvation I will be in the first group coming in while all the geeks clap. I bet some walk ins get in early tho. If they have CS reps allocated for walk ins then I don't see why they won't get served with the rest of us. So how I think they do it is how ever many employees they have. That's how many people will come in and get helped. So let's say they have 30 employees, 20 for resorvations and 5 for In store pickups and 5 for Walk ins. But the majority of people being helped will be resorvations... I am basing this off many reads and many discussions with Apple employe's. Who knows tho, all I know is I have a 8am Res and I better be in there at 8...
I have a 6:30 pm reservation. I’m hoping to get there around 6 after work. I just hope that a phone is indeed reserved and they don’t gave it to someone else
If you reserved a phone it will be there for you no matter what. The store already has a certain amount for resorvations, in store pickup and walk ins. Just to be sure I made 2 resorvations. One for 8am and one for 8:30
you never know right. Someone will be happy there is a extra phone when I am done. I am also in Santa Rosa, CA. An hour north of any big city's. So thank god we are so small it won't be as crazy as some of you big city folk..
You're assuming there will only be one employee helping the entire reservation line? No, like any day at the Apple Store, there will be lots of employees with different duties. There will likely be a person whose ONLY job is to check in people with reservations, and another person whose ONLY job is to handle the walk-in line, etc. Then there will be the employees who will actually handle the selling of the phones. Some will be assigned to walk-ins, some to pick-ups, some to reservations. There will be supervisors who will be assigning customers to employees as they become available.
Next time you're at an Apple Store, take a look at the way the employees are organized. It's not like a normal retail store. There's a lot of organization going on behind the scenes. Those iPads and iPhones they're all using aren't just terminals for processing payments.
Now, that being said, I know the insanity that is an iPhone launch day. The only reason I'm doing in-store is because the upgrade program isn't available online. I fully expect to have to wait past my appointment time, but if I'm waiting too long, I'm going to ask to speak to a manager. If Apple is clearly taking in people with later appointments ahead of people with earlier appointments, that's some major BS and I'm going to complain, calmly but firmly. I chose my appointment time for a reason, I have things to do later in the day. And I can't just get the phone and run off to my next appointment, I have to update to the 9.1 beta, then restore from my backup back at home, etc.
And if the experience is that bad, I won't be doing the upgrade program again.
That's crazy, actually in the store. I bought two last year and sold them but I sold them on Gumtree here in the UK and I could not believe how much people were willing to pay over the price of the phone. I ended up making over £800 and sold them on launch day. I could have sold many more of them if I had of had them. It is just a matter of supply and demand. My brother does it with cars as well although he make hundreds of thousands on each car.
As for this year I have a reservation for 10:15am for one phone and I'm keeping it.
I have had two different experiences with reservations at the Apple Stores in Hong Kong.
For the iPhone 6 launch, you did the reservation process online and during that, you chose a one-hour timeslot. If you did not arrive within that time frame (whether early or late), you would not get your phone, simple as that.
For the Apple Watch, when it was finally available for reservation to pick up in-store, it went a little differently, but I assume that was because stock was more readily available as it was quite a while after launch. I made a reservation for around 4:30pm (they were only offering 30 min time slots) but arrived early, probably around 3pm.
As I was wandering the store just browsing and looking at the watch displays, I had some of the staff come up and ask if I needed help. I stated I was just browsing and eventually offered that I was waiting for a reservation I had made for a later time (this was probably around 3:20ish?). The person helping me said that it wasn't an issue and they could help me right away, as there was no one here for their reservation now and he was free, so there wasn't a need for me to wait for that long.
So I imagine that they might be taking the second approach this time 'round? They will take you ahead of your reservation time if they aren't busy at the moment and no one who made a reservation for the proper time is here waiting, but otherwise you will probably have to wait. It seems like that could end up being kind of messy, especially as its happening at launch, but who knows...
For the iPhone 6 launch, you did the reservation process online and during that, you chose a one-hour timeslot. If you did not arrive within that time frame (whether early or late), you would not get your phone, simple as that.
For the Apple Watch, when it was finally available for reservation to pick up in-store, it went a little differently, but I assume that was because stock was more readily available as it was quite a while after launch. I made a reservation for around 4:30pm (they were only offering 30 min time slots) but arrived early, probably around 3pm.
As I was wandering the store just browsing and looking at the watch displays, I had some of the staff come up and ask if I needed help. I stated I was just browsing and eventually offered that I was waiting for a reservation I had made for a later time (this was probably around 3:20ish?). The person helping me said that it wasn't an issue and they could help me right away, as there was no one here for their reservation now and he was free, so there wasn't a need for me to wait for that long.
So I imagine that they might be taking the second approach this time 'round? They will take you ahead of your reservation time if they aren't busy at the moment and no one who made a reservation for the proper time is here waiting, but otherwise you will probably have to wait. It seems like that could end up being kind of messy, especially as its happening at launch, but who knows...
This has been typical for every phone launch. Do not know why they were told to come later in the day as people get off work and wait in the line. It is not a good day to be at the Apple Store.
There will be more than 1 serving reservation. But, they will still be outnumbered by the number of the buyer. I doubt one Apple Store will have 100 staff just for reservation.