Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Have you been in an Apple Store recently? You know, the place where one can buy iMacs, iPods, iPhones, iThises, iThats and iEtceteras.

To me, there's something curiously off-putting about an Apple Store. I take that back; I know exactly what it is that's a little off-putting so far as I'm concerned.

It's that one can hardly get ten feet into the store before being accosted by a helpful sales rep. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, mind you -- especially if you walked in wanting to buy something and not knowing quite where to find it. But I normally stop by an Apple Store to browse, checking out prices of new computer lines, that sort of thing. In those cases, I'd just as soon not have to go to the trouble of explaining why I'm there.

Altogether, Apple Stores skew in the same direction as Turkish markets where a slight glance at something will bring the salesman running up to you, article in hand, with a "Sir" or "M'dame" on his lips.

Of course there's the other extreme. My experience for years has been that JC Penney stores are chronically understaffed. Sometimes one has to wander almost halfway across the store to even find a clerk to ring something up, let alone explain a product.

My advice to Steve Jobs is to de-staff his stores by, oh, 30 percent and then cut prices on products by ten percent or so. Sounds like a winning solution to me.

Later,

Donald

A few years ago Best Buy started paying its sales workers regular salaries rather than commissions. It makes for a much more pleasant shopping experience. I don't know whether the Apple stores use commissions.

Posted by: Peter on November 30, 2008 10:08 PM

The Simpsons would probably agree with you...

http://tinyurl.com/5mh2n2

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on December 1, 2008 4:30 PM

Here's another link to replace the one above...

http://tinyurl.com/6znxox

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on December 1, 2008 7:15 PM






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