8 ms·

How Apple Store Seduces You With the Tilt of Its Laptops

132 points by tortilla 14y ago

damian2000 14y ago
Here in Australia we have a couple of stores (Myer/David Jones) that have an in-store section for Apple products that are setup like Apple Stores, complete with touchable products. Just next to that section are the windows laptops, locked down and unfriendly. Normally the Apple section is far busier.
- robryan 14y ago
  Yeah, places like jb and dick smith have the same setup, I guess it is a condition from apple to be a seller of their laptops.
  - veb 14y ago
    In New Zealand, I recently went to JB. I was interested in a tablet, specifically the iPad 3, and I asked the sales person, "What's the difference between the Asus Transformer, and the iPad 3?", to which he replies, "Uhhh... the Operating System?". He kept this up, trying to make me feel like a complete idiot for asking these questions... then when I was about to purchase something he walked off. I then wait 20 minutes, and buy the Transformer, as I wasn't allowed to demo the iPad 3. (seriously?) I hate those places with a passion, and as a deaf guy I constantly get people just leaving me without any help after I mention for the third time to speak the fuck up. I wish I had an Apple store here, maybe buying things in a store would be more enjoyable :(
    - paupino_masano 14y ago
      I agree: I've moved to the US and the Apple stores here are AWESOME. Staff on hand, everything laid out well - they even encourage you to try out Facetime. Also, the free trainings they offer are actually very useful. An Apple Store in New Zealand (and possibly other places) would do wonders for the brand - I only switched to Mac after a visit to the US. The next-best-thing we had in Auckland was MagnumMac - it was OK but it was no Apple Store.
      - MBCook 14y ago
        The biggest problem with Apple stores at this point is that they are always busy. I remember when the first Apple store opened in my area a few years ago, there were always people there but only a decent number. Now, it doesn't seem to matter when I go to the Apple stores around me, they're buzzing with tons of activity.
        yardie 14y ago
        I remember going to the Apple Store when it opened in my area. It had decent traffic and you could actually get a genius without appointment. Now 7 years later it's totally packed and I don't think the amount of sales has kept pace with the amount of foot traffic. But the foot traffic certainly helps drive sales. Also, being close to an Apple Store helps other stores as well. I've seen so many parents just leave their kids at the Apple store while they run off to Victoria's Secret or BB&W. That section of the mall is completely busy when before it was just foot traffic going to Macy's or another anchor store.
        culturestate 14y ago
        They're absolutely jammed, but you notice that you never have a problem finding an employee to help you? I was at the Apple Store in Hong Kong the other day talking to one of the floor guys as he was ringing me up; he told me they have 150 people on shift in the store at any given time. Granted, the Hong Kong store is massive, but that still seems like an extraordinary number for a single shift.
    - damian2000 14y ago
      Someone with a shite attitude like that probably hates his job ... time to complain to his manager and put him out of his misery.
  - MBCook 14y ago
    Apple has been partnering with Best Buy for a few years, and I imagine they do the same thing around the world. It's not a condition though. My local Microcenter sells Apple laptops (always have) and have a little section for them, but it's not run by Apple. It looks like the rest of the store, and isn't laid out like an Apple store.
    - X-Istence 14y ago
      Here in Colorado there is a Microcenter that sells Apple products. I was talking to one of the managers about the Apple section and he said that he sells less of them than any other brand and they make almost no money on them. Probing a little further it is because the sales guys don't get a high commission on them unlike the other products, and thus they are unloved. Just like most of the other sections of the store the Apple section was almost entirely empty. I've bought a laptop from Microcenter, and boy was it something I regretted ...
dangrossman 14y ago
The Apple section of the Best Buy stores around here are set up like an Apple Store... all the Apple products set up, turned on, connected to the internet on wooden tables with plenty of room to play with them. At the same time, almost all the Windows laptops are either running a demo app showing specs and videos you can't quit to the desktop from, have been rebooted by someone and are stuck on the welcome screen waiting for a password you don't know, or are turned off. I haven't been able to buy a Windows laptop in stores for a couple years. They only stock junk with dim, low-DPI 1366x768 screens, and don't let you try them out enough to tell if you want to work on that computer every day for the next few years. I've ended up relying on online reviews and videos to pick models, then using manufacturers' sites to custom build them with decent screens and SSDs (14" 1600x900 in my HP Envy right now). If I were forced to replace my laptop today, I'd be mighty tempted to make a switch to a MBA or MBP, even if just to run Windows on it. I hope the retina displays and Win8 release push the rest of the manufacturers to build some decent alternatives next year.
- tseabrooks 14y ago
  I used to work the PC dept at BestBuy in Highschool and I never noticed that the apple store goes out of it's way to make sure you can play with and try the computers but the windows machines are never (almost) in a situation you can play with. Why is that? My guess would be that it's related to the bloatware on the PC. There is probably some agreements where they agree to have their logo and application name displayed in store on the slideshow. Or something else? Different marketing strategy by MS? Can MS really think the slideshow of bloatware logo and specifications are going to help sell?
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    Microsoft just provides operating system keys and logo stickers to OEMs. They have little to no control over how computers are sold, marketed, or presented in stores. Those demo apps and preinstalled software come from the manufacturer.
    - tseabrooks 14y ago
zalew 14y ago
"The difference between Apple and Best Buy" why not difference between Apple and f.ex. Sony Center which are also designed to engage the customer, let him play with the product? I'm not a fan of Sony, but know many people who liked their stores, that's a better comparison than a supermarket.
- laconian 14y ago
  Because the story wouldn't produce as many pageviews.
  - notJim 14y ago
    They're trying to compare typical buying experiences. The typical place one buys an Apple laptop is in an Apple store, or Apple-designed section of another store. Sony laptops are much more often sold in the section with the crappy hodgepodge of Windows laptops that any electronics store has.
    - zalew 14y ago
      both products can be bought anywhere including the internet. the main reason branded stores exist at all is the appearance and controlling the experience, engaging with the customer in an environment where the only competing products are of their own brand. bestbuy type stores work the opposite way: fill it with lots of products of various brands and prices so anybody can walk out with something and the staff can redirect the client to the competition at any time. btw sony sections in the tv dept of many markets are also better looking.
- swdunlop 14y ago
  Well, it is somewhat relevant to Forbes, since Best Buy has been giving all the indicators of following Circuit City into oblivion and Forbes has commented about it recently. The Apple Store (and Sony Store) is a contrast in how a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box. Which is interesting, considering how long the Big Box retail scene has been considered the death of small independent shops. (Cue Elton John singing about the Circle of Life..) The Best Buy in my neighborhood is more convenient by about 90m than the Apple Store. But I generally refuse to go to Best Buy for anything that I can't find on a pegboard, like cables or a USB drive. Everything else, I get random unavailability, clueless salespeople, and a really strange mildew smell from the upholstery. Smells like doom, really.
dzine 14y ago
I love how Apple takes common sense (in retrospect) to extreme levels. Not only do they do that well, they excel in thinking out of the box, for the simplest of things. Color me impressed.
lawnchair_larry 14y ago
It amazes me how non-Apple phones are sold just about everywhere I go. I often go to check them out, and it's a plastic shell with a sticker for a screen. The shortsightedness of this sales approach is astounding. It's not even that this is a particularly ingenious move by Apple, it's just common sense.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
robomartin 14y ago
A big part of that is that Apple controls the horizontal and vertical (sorry if you are too young to get the reference). I would imagine they have customized store builds that they can easily restore to a normal state when someone royally screws it up. Then there's probably a level of reasonable user level protection setup (no admin access). I've never tried going into an Apple store and tried to do admin type things. I'd be interesting to see how they deal with that. The contrast is even sharper in other countries. In some places it is a huge cultural no-no to go into a store and start touching stuff. Just try going into a toy store in one of these places with a US-raised kid used to ToysRUs.
- theatrus2 14y ago
  The laptops clean themselves up after a few minutes of inactivity. You can even play with most settings in system preferences.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Great! Having never visited an Apple Store, I had no idea. I always thought it's a poor man's job to clean machines/iDevices every night (remotely, of course - but still manually).
- X-Istence 14y ago
  The last time I really played with the machines they were locked down quite well. Sure you can play to your hearts content but there is not a whole lot of damage that you can do. Also, when required they can re-install the machines using a network boot with an ready made image. Pretty much the same way that they rebuild customer machines (if you ever get a reinstall at the genius bar they no longer grab an external hard drive or DVD, they simply plug it into a network cable and network boot it, they then select from a list of options and the re-install happens automatically from there... pretty slick system (BTW, that is how they have all of their diagnostics tools available as well).
GuiA 14y ago
On a very related note, "The Ikea Effect" : http://hbr.org/web/2009/hbr-list/ikea-effect-when-labor-leads-to-love http://hbr.org/web/2009/hbr-list/ikea-effect-when-labor-lead...
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  Funny how they put it like adding an egg was adding human contact. The fact is that a cake without eggs needs artificial eggs(industry products with natural eggs are very dangerous so they have to replace it with shit). The product tastes very different, is not as healthful (in fact is wrong for your health). They attribute the effect to a minor cause.
experiment0 14y ago
Apple store employee here. This indeed does happen although after a while you get pretty good at judging a 70 deg angle without an app. From anecdotal experience, it really does make a massive difference in the level of interaction customers have with the products. Even if people just come in because they haven't been in an Apple store before, the first thing they do is push the screen back and by that point they've already started interacting with the computer.
- lotu 14y ago
  Question, every Apple store I've ever seen is crazy crowded all day, do you frequently re-adjust screens durning the day (I've never seen you do that) or is this just a start of the day trick?
  - experiment0 14y ago
    Tend to do general tidying all throughout the day. Its normally if you walk past and nobody is using it/requires attention then just straighten it up a little bit. There is no set time during the day where everyone adjusts the display though.
- LokiSnake 14y ago
  I never noticed that setting it at 70 degrees is done on purpose. I have always noticed and commented on the fact that Apple has paid immense attention to the simple experience of adjusting the screen. It's always so effortless, and never too tight or loose.
stephengillie 14y ago
Why do most electronics retailers use empty or powered-off demonstration devices? To reduce costs - from customer theft, employee theft, damage or abuse by prospective customers, etc. At Best Buy, when a customer's kid spills their soda on a laptop or phone, who pays for the hardware? Best buy, the parent, or the manufacturer?
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  But... how often does that happen? And would one not think that they might - maybe, possibly, just might - sell a few more by having usable computers people can test drive before shelling out $799? The increase in sales might - again, crazy I know - just might help absorb the cost from the occasional spilled soda on a laptop.
  - brianpan 14y ago
    Did you not get the consultant's report on inventory shrinkage and oversight? I'll send you another copy along with the Powerpoint presentation. Please review it, we'll be moving forward with standardization on action points 2 through 7.
  - planetguy 14y ago
    It helps that Apple stores have an employee density many, many times that of a Best Buy or similar, which means people are unlikely to get away with anything sneaky for too long.
- Tooluka 14y ago
  I don't know about electronics specifically and different country issues (I live in Ukraine), but in general store if you would accidentally* break anything then, regardless of store rules, the store can't require customer to pay for it. *I don't exactly remember about "accidental" part. I suppose that store would be required to prove that action was intentional in court.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    In the US we hear "you break it you buy it" a lot, but most retailers will bear the costs in the interests of customer retention.
pbreit 14y ago
After reading the article I still am not sure exactly why Apple sets the screens at some specific angle at store opening. To entice people to touch them doesn't quite sound right since the angles will all be adjusted rather quickly. And do reps keep re-setting them throughout the day? The author doesn't say. The author also fails to mention one major reason why shoppers feel compelled to touch Apple products and develop a like for them while at the Apple store: Apple makes very touchable and likable products!
- Tooluka 14y ago
  I think that this angle is set so that person standing near the table would look at the display at 90 degree angle, just like with general monitor setup advice (monitor perpendicular to the line of sight, line of sight ends at the top border of the display). Since people are standing, not sitting, then notebook display should be a bit tilted backwards.
- NLips 14y ago
  The screens are at the wrong angle for a standing customer, so customers will tilt the screen further back, starting the 'hands on' experience. Th reps re-set them when they aren't otherwise occupied.
dsirijus 14y ago
There is an impression that Apple does this for you, for everyone, as a completely benign and sane sales point for which they go lengths to acchieve. It's false. It's what YOU, the end consumer of Apple products, pay for - random people checking out their products. It's in YOUR price tag. I personally don't like MY money being distributed that way.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  How ridiculous. We can say the exact same thing about test drives, trial subscriptions, free samples at Costco, etc etc. Any type of "sampling", or indeed any marketing, can be said to be paying customers subsidizing non-paying customers. All of the above cases are completely absurd points to make, including in relation to Apple.
  - dsirijus 14y ago
    I'm not downplaying that practice; of course it is common. What I do have trouble is the general sentiment that they go out of their way to help you, and it is just embedded in the price tag. And the blame for that is not even on Apple side - it's on you. And, like I've stated, I just PERSONALLY don't like it, as a general practice.
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  I find this statement utter nonsense. The cost of an Internet line and some maintenance is negligible with the cost of the store itself. Apple sells much more laptops that anybody else per store square meter(from 10x to 100x) with a profit margin higher than anybody else. The cost are much smaller than the competence, with switched on pcs than nobody could use(password protected). It seems common sense it not so common after all.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- dagw 14y ago
  However if doing all this means that they sell more laptops then they get better economies of scale and lower per item prices, which drives down the cost.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
Here in Spain the experience outside Apple stores is terrible. If you go to Worten, or Carrefour and try to use an iPad you will find no Internet(!), with password protected Wifi, it seems they are "saving" money, or they don't want people to use the machines at all, only buy them. The machines have no interesting apps on it. Just the other day it looked like someone were boycotting the Apple stand on purpose, you will see the Ipad3s with the zoom enabled and other accessibility options enabled, and a stupid ugly customer face as background. It was hard to use the machine at all, and it was energy depleting. Then I went to an Apple store, wow!, what a difference just adding useful apps and Internet. It seems only natural but it has been carefully orchestrated.
pooriaazimi 14y ago
Of all the things I hate about (typical) Windows PCs (or Linux PCs), I have to say the experience of opening their lid is the worst. I'm used to my MacBook Pro, that requires minimum pressure to open the lid. On the contrary, all other laptops I've tried require to to first hold the bottom and then push the lid backward. If you don't hold the bottom, it will go up 5 inches and lands very hard on the ground. I damn near wrecked my aunt's new Dell last week the instant I tried to open its screen (to install anti-virus and remove factory junk). If I had used just a little more pressure, her laptop would've landed 3 feet on the floor and would certainly break. Bad fortune for a laptop that hasn't even been booted once... So I guess a typical Wintel user that is used to these stupid screens would be amazed at how MacBooks are different.
naner 14y ago
To add another anecdote: I happened to be leafing through a womens' mag while waiting for an appointment recently and there was an article on simple ways to save on spending. The article said to never try on clothes when you are window shopping or "just looking" at a store. The reasoning was similar to this article on Apple: When you try something on and see it on yourself in the mirror, you now own that piece of clothing in your mind. And by not purchasing it, you actually experience a loss. As if you owned the item and now it was taken away from you. This emotion is ostensibly more "painful" than simply wanting an item and not purchasing it.
horsehead 14y ago
Is getting a customer to interact with its product really considered terribly clever or Apple-esque? Isn't this the goal of any decent marketer? I like looking at electronics at walmart, but it frustrates the hell out of me that I can't USE them. I'm not going to buy something unless I can test drive it first.

132 points by tortilla 14y ago

damian2000 14y ago

Here in Australia we have a couple of stores (Myer/David Jones) that have an in-store section for Apple products that are setup like Apple Stores, complete with touchable products. Just next to that section are the windows laptops, locked down and unfriendly. Normally the Apple section is far busier.

robryan 14y ago
Yeah, places like jb and dick smith have the same setup, I guess it is a condition from apple to be a seller of their laptops.
- veb 14y ago
  In New Zealand, I recently went to JB. I was interested in a tablet, specifically the iPad 3, and I asked the sales person, "What's the difference between the Asus Transformer, and the iPad 3?", to which he replies, "Uhhh... the Operating System?". He kept this up, trying to make me feel like a complete idiot for asking these questions... then when I was about to purchase something he walked off. I then wait 20 minutes, and buy the Transformer, as I wasn't allowed to demo the iPad 3. (seriously?) I hate those places with a passion, and as a deaf guy I constantly get people just leaving me without any help after I mention for the third time to speak the fuck up. I wish I had an Apple store here, maybe buying things in a store would be more enjoyable :(
  - paupino_masano 14y ago
    I agree: I've moved to the US and the Apple stores here are AWESOME. Staff on hand, everything laid out well - they even encourage you to try out Facetime. Also, the free trainings they offer are actually very useful. An Apple Store in New Zealand (and possibly other places) would do wonders for the brand - I only switched to Mac after a visit to the US. The next-best-thing we had in Auckland was MagnumMac - it was OK but it was no Apple Store.
    - MBCook 14y ago
      The biggest problem with Apple stores at this point is that they are always busy. I remember when the first Apple store opened in my area a few years ago, there were always people there but only a decent number. Now, it doesn't seem to matter when I go to the Apple stores around me, they're buzzing with tons of activity.
      - yardie 14y ago
        I remember going to the Apple Store when it opened in my area. It had decent traffic and you could actually get a genius without appointment. Now 7 years later it's totally packed and I don't think the amount of sales has kept pace with the amount of foot traffic. But the foot traffic certainly helps drive sales. Also, being close to an Apple Store helps other stores as well. I've seen so many parents just leave their kids at the Apple store while they run off to Victoria's Secret or BB&W. That section of the mall is completely busy when before it was just foot traffic going to Macy's or another anchor store.
      - culturestate 14y ago
        They're absolutely jammed, but you notice that you never have a problem finding an employee to help you? I was at the Apple Store in Hong Kong the other day talking to one of the floor guys as he was ringing me up; he told me they have 150 people on shift in the store at any given time. Granted, the Hong Kong store is massive, but that still seems like an extraordinary number for a single shift.
  - damian2000 14y ago
    Someone with a shite attitude like that probably hates his job ... time to complain to his manager and put him out of his misery.
- MBCook 14y ago
  Apple has been partnering with Best Buy for a few years, and I imagine they do the same thing around the world. It's not a condition though. My local Microcenter sells Apple laptops (always have) and have a little section for them, but it's not run by Apple. It looks like the rest of the store, and isn't laid out like an Apple store.
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    Here in Colorado there is a Microcenter that sells Apple products. I was talking to one of the managers about the Apple section and he said that he sells less of them than any other brand and they make almost no money on them. Probing a little further it is because the sales guys don't get a high commission on them unlike the other products, and thus they are unloved. Just like most of the other sections of the store the Apple section was almost entirely empty. I've bought a laptop from Microcenter, and boy was it something I regretted ...

dangrossman 14y ago

The Apple section of the Best Buy stores around here are set up like an Apple Store... all the Apple products set up, turned on, connected to the internet on wooden tables with plenty of room to play with them. At the same time, almost all the Windows laptops are either running a demo app showing specs and videos you can't quit to the desktop from, have been rebooted by someone and are stuck on the welcome screen waiting for a password you don't know, or are turned off. I haven't been able to buy a Windows laptop in stores for a couple years. They only stock junk with dim, low-DPI 1366x768 screens, and don't let you try them out enough to tell if you want to work on that computer every day for the next few years. I've ended up relying on online reviews and videos to pick models, then using manufacturers' sites to custom build them with decent screens and SSDs (14" 1600x900 in my HP Envy right now). If I were forced to replace my laptop today, I'd be mighty tempted to make a switch to a MBA or MBP, even if just to run Windows on it. I hope the retina displays and Win8 release push the rest of the manufacturers to build some decent alternatives next year.

tseabrooks 14y ago
I used to work the PC dept at BestBuy in Highschool and I never noticed that the apple store goes out of it's way to make sure you can play with and try the computers but the windows machines are never (almost) in a situation you can play with. Why is that? My guess would be that it's related to the bloatware on the PC. There is probably some agreements where they agree to have their logo and application name displayed in store on the slideshow. Or something else? Different marketing strategy by MS? Can MS really think the slideshow of bloatware logo and specifications are going to help sell?
- dangrossman 14y ago
  Microsoft just provides operating system keys and logo stickers to OEMs. They have little to no control over how computers are sold, marketed, or presented in stores. Those demo apps and preinstalled software come from the manufacturer.
  - tseabrooks 14y ago

zalew 14y ago

"The difference between Apple and Best Buy" why not difference between Apple and f.ex. Sony Center which are also designed to engage the customer, let him play with the product? I'm not a fan of Sony, but know many people who liked their stores, that's a better comparison than a supermarket.

laconian 14y ago
Because the story wouldn't produce as many pageviews.
- notJim 14y ago
  They're trying to compare typical buying experiences. The typical place one buys an Apple laptop is in an Apple store, or Apple-designed section of another store. Sony laptops are much more often sold in the section with the crappy hodgepodge of Windows laptops that any electronics store has.
  - zalew 14y ago
    both products can be bought anywhere including the internet. the main reason branded stores exist at all is the appearance and controlling the experience, engaging with the customer in an environment where the only competing products are of their own brand. bestbuy type stores work the opposite way: fill it with lots of products of various brands and prices so anybody can walk out with something and the staff can redirect the client to the competition at any time. btw sony sections in the tv dept of many markets are also better looking.
swdunlop 14y ago
Well, it is somewhat relevant to Forbes, since Best Buy has been giving all the indicators of following Circuit City into oblivion and Forbes has commented about it recently. The Apple Store (and Sony Store) is a contrast in how a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box. Which is interesting, considering how long the Big Box retail scene has been considered the death of small independent shops. (Cue Elton John singing about the Circle of Life..) The Best Buy in my neighborhood is more convenient by about 90m than the Apple Store. But I generally refuse to go to Best Buy for anything that I can't find on a pegboard, like cables or a USB drive. Everything else, I get random unavailability, clueless salespeople, and a really strange mildew smell from the upholstery. Smells like doom, really.

dzine 14y ago

I love how Apple takes common sense (in retrospect) to extreme levels. Not only do they do that well, they excel in thinking out of the box, for the simplest of things. Color me impressed.

lawnchair_larry 14y ago

It amazes me how non-Apple phones are sold just about everywhere I go. I often go to check them out, and it's a plastic shell with a sticker for a screen. The shortsightedness of this sales approach is astounding. It's not even that this is a particularly ingenious move by Apple, it's just common sense.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

robomartin 14y ago

A big part of that is that Apple controls the horizontal and vertical (sorry if you are too young to get the reference). I would imagine they have customized store builds that they can easily restore to a normal state when someone royally screws it up. Then there's probably a level of reasonable user level protection setup (no admin access). I've never tried going into an Apple store and tried to do admin type things. I'd be interesting to see how they deal with that. The contrast is even sharper in other countries. In some places it is a huge cultural no-no to go into a store and start touching stuff. Just try going into a toy store in one of these places with a US-raised kid used to ToysRUs.

theatrus2 14y ago
The laptops clean themselves up after a few minutes of inactivity. You can even play with most settings in system preferences.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Great! Having never visited an Apple Store, I had no idea. I always thought it's a poor man's job to clean machines/iDevices every night (remotely, of course - but still manually).
X-Istence 14y ago
The last time I really played with the machines they were locked down quite well. Sure you can play to your hearts content but there is not a whole lot of damage that you can do. Also, when required they can re-install the machines using a network boot with an ready made image. Pretty much the same way that they rebuild customer machines (if you ever get a reinstall at the genius bar they no longer grab an external hard drive or DVD, they simply plug it into a network cable and network boot it, they then select from a list of options and the re-install happens automatically from there... pretty slick system (BTW, that is how they have all of their diagnostics tools available as well).

GuiA 14y ago

On a very related note, "The Ikea Effect" : http://hbr.org/web/2009/hbr-list/ikea-effect-when-labor-leads-to-love http://hbr.org/web/2009/hbr-list/ikea-effect-when-labor-lead...

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
Funny how they put it like adding an egg was adding human contact. The fact is that a cake without eggs needs artificial eggs(industry products with natural eggs are very dangerous so they have to replace it with shit). The product tastes very different, is not as healthful (in fact is wrong for your health). They attribute the effect to a minor cause.

experiment0 14y ago

Apple store employee here. This indeed does happen although after a while you get pretty good at judging a 70 deg angle without an app. From anecdotal experience, it really does make a massive difference in the level of interaction customers have with the products. Even if people just come in because they haven't been in an Apple store before, the first thing they do is push the screen back and by that point they've already started interacting with the computer.

lotu 14y ago
Question, every Apple store I've ever seen is crazy crowded all day, do you frequently re-adjust screens durning the day (I've never seen you do that) or is this just a start of the day trick?
- experiment0 14y ago
  Tend to do general tidying all throughout the day. Its normally if you walk past and nobody is using it/requires attention then just straighten it up a little bit. There is no set time during the day where everyone adjusts the display though.
LokiSnake 14y ago
I never noticed that setting it at 70 degrees is done on purpose. I have always noticed and commented on the fact that Apple has paid immense attention to the simple experience of adjusting the screen. It's always so effortless, and never too tight or loose.

stephengillie 14y ago

Why do most electronics retailers use empty or powered-off demonstration devices? To reduce costs - from customer theft, employee theft, damage or abuse by prospective customers, etc. At Best Buy, when a customer's kid spills their soda on a laptop or phone, who pays for the hardware? Best buy, the parent, or the manufacturer?

mgkimsal 14y ago
But... how often does that happen? And would one not think that they might - maybe, possibly, just might - sell a few more by having usable computers people can test drive before shelling out $799? The increase in sales might - again, crazy I know - just might help absorb the cost from the occasional spilled soda on a laptop.
- brianpan 14y ago
  Did you not get the consultant's report on inventory shrinkage and oversight? I'll send you another copy along with the Powerpoint presentation. Please review it, we'll be moving forward with standardization on action points 2 through 7.
- planetguy 14y ago
  It helps that Apple stores have an employee density many, many times that of a Best Buy or similar, which means people are unlikely to get away with anything sneaky for too long.
Tooluka 14y ago
I don't know about electronics specifically and different country issues (I live in Ukraine), but in general store if you would accidentally* break anything then, regardless of store rules, the store can't require customer to pay for it. *I don't exactly remember about "accidental" part. I suppose that store would be required to prove that action was intentional in court.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  In the US we hear "you break it you buy it" a lot, but most retailers will bear the costs in the interests of customer retention.

pbreit 14y ago

After reading the article I still am not sure exactly why Apple sets the screens at some specific angle at store opening. To entice people to touch them doesn't quite sound right since the angles will all be adjusted rather quickly. And do reps keep re-setting them throughout the day? The author doesn't say. The author also fails to mention one major reason why shoppers feel compelled to touch Apple products and develop a like for them while at the Apple store: Apple makes very touchable and likable products!

Tooluka 14y ago
I think that this angle is set so that person standing near the table would look at the display at 90 degree angle, just like with general monitor setup advice (monitor perpendicular to the line of sight, line of sight ends at the top border of the display). Since people are standing, not sitting, then notebook display should be a bit tilted backwards.
NLips 14y ago
The screens are at the wrong angle for a standing customer, so customers will tilt the screen further back, starting the 'hands on' experience. Th reps re-set them when they aren't otherwise occupied.

dsirijus 14y ago

There is an impression that Apple does this for you, for everyone, as a completely benign and sane sales point for which they go lengths to acchieve. It's false. It's what YOU, the end consumer of Apple products, pay for - random people checking out their products. It's in YOUR price tag. I personally don't like MY money being distributed that way.

potatolicious 14y ago
How ridiculous. We can say the exact same thing about test drives, trial subscriptions, free samples at Costco, etc etc. Any type of "sampling", or indeed any marketing, can be said to be paying customers subsidizing non-paying customers. All of the above cases are completely absurd points to make, including in relation to Apple.
- dsirijus 14y ago
  I'm not downplaying that practice; of course it is common. What I do have trouble is the general sentiment that they go out of their way to help you, and it is just embedded in the price tag. And the blame for that is not even on Apple side - it's on you. And, like I've stated, I just PERSONALLY don't like it, as a general practice.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
I find this statement utter nonsense. The cost of an Internet line and some maintenance is negligible with the cost of the store itself. Apple sells much more laptops that anybody else per store square meter(from 10x to 100x) with a profit margin higher than anybody else. The cost are much smaller than the competence, with switched on pcs than nobody could use(password protected). It seems common sense it not so common after all.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dagw 14y ago
However if doing all this means that they sell more laptops then they get better economies of scale and lower per item prices, which drives down the cost.

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago

Here in Spain the experience outside Apple stores is terrible. If you go to Worten, or Carrefour and try to use an iPad you will find no Internet(!), with password protected Wifi, it seems they are "saving" money, or they don't want people to use the machines at all, only buy them. The machines have no interesting apps on it. Just the other day it looked like someone were boycotting the Apple stand on purpose, you will see the Ipad3s with the zoom enabled and other accessibility options enabled, and a stupid ugly customer face as background. It was hard to use the machine at all, and it was energy depleting. Then I went to an Apple store, wow!, what a difference just adding useful apps and Internet. It seems only natural but it has been carefully orchestrated.

pooriaazimi 14y ago

Of all the things I hate about (typical) Windows PCs (or Linux PCs), I have to say the experience of opening their lid is the worst. I'm used to my MacBook Pro, that requires minimum pressure to open the lid. On the contrary, all other laptops I've tried require to to first hold the bottom and then push the lid backward. If you don't hold the bottom, it will go up 5 inches and lands very hard on the ground. I damn near wrecked my aunt's new Dell last week the instant I tried to open its screen (to install anti-virus and remove factory junk). If I had used just a little more pressure, her laptop would've landed 3 feet on the floor and would certainly break. Bad fortune for a laptop that hasn't even been booted once... So I guess a typical Wintel user that is used to these stupid screens would be amazed at how MacBooks are different.

naner 14y ago

To add another anecdote: I happened to be leafing through a womens' mag while waiting for an appointment recently and there was an article on simple ways to save on spending. The article said to never try on clothes when you are window shopping or "just looking" at a store. The reasoning was similar to this article on Apple: When you try something on and see it on yourself in the mirror, you now own that piece of clothing in your mind. And by not purchasing it, you actually experience a loss. As if you owned the item and now it was taken away from you. This emotion is ostensibly more "painful" than simply wanting an item and not purchasing it.

horsehead 14y ago

Is getting a customer to interact with its product really considered terribly clever or Apple-esque? Isn't this the goal of any decent marketer? I like looking at electronics at walmart, but it frustrates the hell out of me that I can't USE them. I'm not going to buy something unless I can test drive it first.