Angela Ahrendts tells retail employees to push customers online for Apple Watch, 12" MacBook launche

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 59
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    How about some back-of-the-envelope arithmetic. A typical Apple Retail Store will be open around 147 hours beginning April 10 through April 23. If on average a store has 10 watch try-on stations manned by store personnel and each can deal with six appointments per hour, at theoretical capacity the store has roughly 8800 try-on appointment slots available. The behavior to watch is how quickly these appointments fill up after they can be reserved starting this Friday, April 10.
  • Reply 22 of 59
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    maccherry wrote: »
    This woman needs to go. Long a** lines for an Apple product is classic and it serves as one of the greatest pices of advertising there is. At then end of the day Apple and their customer base will be very happy.
    Only a masochist would find fulfillment from standing in line. Those who enjoy watching others stand in line would be called sadists.
  • Reply 23 of 59
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Let's not forget when Cook hired Ahrendts he gave her responsibility for BOTH brick and mortar and online online stores. Also Apple is no longer reporting brick and mortar sales on their own. Those figures are now included in Apple's sales figures by region. Perhaps Apple really views their B&M stores more as show rooms where people can go try stuff out before they buy and then order online. With more products in the lineup it's harder to keep stock available for everything all the time, especially at some of the smaller stores.

    As far as lines go, these days the only product that draws lines is the iPhone. There weren't people lining up outside the door for the 5K IMac or new rMBP. And when the new iPads were launched last yesr Apple didn't even say what day they'd be available in store. So really I think this is much ado about nothing and a partial leak to try and create controversy where none exists.
  • Reply 24 of 59
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Lord Amhran View Post





    I suspect they'll declare it a failure with or without the lines...



    You got that right!

  • Reply 25 of 59
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Kibitzer View Post





    Only a masochist would find fulfillment from standing in line. Those who enjoy watching others stand in line would be called sadists.



    And certainly those calling for someone's immediate firing, sorry "letting go", are just spoon-clanging.

  • Reply 26 of 59
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by prokip View Post

     

    Let's see what happens on April 10 at 12.01 PST.


    Crickets chirping?

  • Reply 27 of 59
    poksipoksi Posts: 482member

    Queues are hype, a brand. Availability and cost for Apple here are irrelevant. These customers WANT this experience and they believe they deserve it. It's Apple's PR and their competitor's anger and despair.... Angela got it wrong here. By a wide margin. Anyway, I do consider her as a weak part of Apple's VP chain, so I'm hardly surprised.

  • Reply 28 of 59
    tundraboytundraboy Posts: 1,884member

    Dearie? This woman?  What Angela Ahrendts has achieved and accomplished is orders of magnitude more than any of us commenting here ever have, and to those commenters who feel that they need to couch their critique in gender-condescending terms, that reveals a lot more about your own personal insecurity,  small-mindedness, and fear of women than her competence.

  • Reply 29 of 59
    tundraboytundraboy Posts: 1,884member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by poksi View Post

     

    Queues are hype, a brand. Availability and cost for Apple here are irrelevant. These customers WANT this experience and they believe they deserve it. It's Apple's PR and their competitor's anger and despair.... Angela got it wrong here. By a wide margin. Anyway, I do consider her as a weak part of Apple's VP chain, so I'm hardly surprised.




    Maybe if you've been the highly successful CEO of an international fashion and retail corporation, I'll give more weight to your opinions.

  • Reply 30 of 59
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member

    Angie Fail.

     

    I am trying to be generous by assuming the article contains only a snippet of the complete email. But it is email like this from very senior management that sort of drive me crazy. AAPL pays her how many 10s of millions to write this? Angie, the watch is a new product that requires (dare I say it?) a "personal" approach. Your boss uses this word over and over every time he talks about it. Why aren't you using this touchphrase? "Come see the watch in person! Try it on and marvel at it's uniqueness and personal expression of your taste, style...and tech savvy!" Then you can order right online, right from our store, for pickup on launch day or delivery to your door." Apple store employees should be concierges, not shills to an online store that everyone (everyone) who will even be remotely interested in buying a watch knows about.

     

    This whole memo is a solid C+ in any marketing class. And Angie makes how much? This would be a moment for her to shine, show her value. Fail, Fail, Fail.

     

    I'll bet even Ben Frost could do as well.

  • Reply 31 of 59
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tundraboy View Post

     

    Dearie? This woman?  What Angela Ahrendts has achieved and accomplished is orders of magnitude more than any of us commenting here ever have, and to those commenters who feel that they need to couch their critique in gender-condescending terms, that reveals a lot more about your own personal insecurity,  small-mindedness, and fear of women than her competence.


     

    Well-fucking-said. The veiled condescension is disgusting. "Dearie"? I'm sure Angela could rip pretty much everyone in this thread a new one. 

  • Reply 32 of 59
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Line waiting is all part of the fun of a new product announcement. Why discourage people from enjoying the hoopla?

    Will every store have every possible Watch/band combo? This launch is markedly different from previous ones.
  • Reply 33 of 59
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eightzero View Post

     

    Angie Fail.

     

    I am trying to be generous by assuming the article contains only a snippet of the complete email. But it is email like this from very senior management that sort of drive me crazy. AAPL pays her how many 10s of millions to write this? Angie, the watch is a new product that requires (dare I say it?) a "personal" approach. Your boss uses this word over and over every time he talks about it. Why aren't you using this touchphrase? "Come see the watch in person! Try it on and marvel at it's uniqueness and personal expression of your taste, style...and tech savvy!" Then you can order right online, right from our store, for pickup on launch day or delivery to your door." Apple store employees should be concierges, not shills to an online store that everyone (everyone) who will even be remotely interested in buying a watch knows about.

     

    This whole memo is a solid C+ in any marketing class. And Angie makes how much? This would be a moment for her to shine, show her value. Fail, Fail, Fail.

     

    I'll bet even Ben Frost could do as well.


     

    It's sad that in your rush to attack your post contains a multitudes of specious assumptions. 

     

    First of all, this was a letter to EMPLOYEES, not consumers, which your re-write is speaking to. Why the hell would she ask employees to "come see the watch in person!", or ask employees to ask that to customer..already in the damn store? Again, you didn't even bother to read the fundamentals before your off base retort. 

     

    Secondly, you assume that Tim Cook and others in the company did not sign off on this before it was sent I VERY much doubt that's the case, and that she would send something Cook did not read and did not approve of, for a launch of Apple's first new category in years. 

     

    What she sent is reasonable and logical- that store supplies might be limit, and employees should encourage customers to check online if they don't find what they need. Wow, the horror. The only "fail fail fail" is your reading comprehension and your rush to attack without considering the context and facts. 

  • Reply 34 of 59
    i understand it is a computer company, but isn't she basically automating a key function of a human by telling the employees to direct the sales to online; thus jeopardizing those peoples job stability?
  • Reply 35 of 59
    freediverxfreediverx Posts: 1,423member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Kibitzer View Post



    What's different this time is that customers can schedule a try-on appointment at an Apple Store between April 10 and the April 24 release date. Try them on, pick your favorite, order online and know when it's going to show up at your doorstep. For every other product, people were ordering online or lining up on the first day to buy sight unseen, so Angela's advice in that context makes perfect sense.

     

     

    No, they actually screwed this up because the try-out sessions begin the same day as the actual sales. This means that anyone who schedules a try-out session runs the risk that the store will not have their preferred model/size at the time, and by then even an online order will be delayed or backordered.

     

    They should have planned for in-store displays at least a week prior to actual sales.

  • Reply 36 of 59
    isn't she passively telling employees that she is automating a key function of their jobs? thus jeopardizing their employment.
  • Reply 37 of 59
    poksipoksi Posts: 482member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tundraboy View Post

     



    Maybe if you've been the highly successful CEO of an international fashion and retail corporation, I'll give more weight to your opinions.




    So, only highly successful international fashion and retail corporation CEO's can give opinion on the work of Angela? Please, don't embarrass yourself. At least not so much....  

     

    I'm a customer of Apple store, both, online and some brick and mortar for a decade. So I'm customer. One of them. One of a bunch. Big bunch. This makes me the best critic of Apple's VP of Retail. In comparison to that, I've bought only one trench coat in my life, so I can hardly comment on her work at Burberry's.

  • Reply 38 of 59
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    poksi wrote: »

    So, only highly successful international fashion and retail corporation CEO's can give opinion on the work of Angela? Please, don't embarrass yourself. At least not so much....  

    I'm a customer of Apple store, both, online and some brick and mortar for a decade. So I'm customer. One of them. One of a bunch. Big bunch. This makes me the best critic of Apple's VP of Retail. In comparison to that, I've bought only one trench coat in my life, so I can hardly comment on her work at Burberry's.

    "I consider her as a weak part of Apple's VP chain . . ." —yeah, being a ten-year customer of Apple stores gives you automatic keen insight into the top tier of Apple management. That's all you need to tell us.

    I've been a retail customer since the first store opened in Glendale, and I think she's the one to take the stores into the real global phase, which is happening now. It's very possible that this particular move is directed squarely at scalpers. You left that out as a strategic possibility, brother customer.
  • Reply 39 of 59
    rayzrayz Posts: 814member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by poksi View Post

     



    So, only highly successful international fashion and retail corporation CEO's can give opinion on the work of Angela? 


     

    Nope.

     

    Only highly successful international fashion and retail corporation CEO's can give an opinion of any value on the work of Angela.

     

    But anyone else can say what they want.

  • Reply 40 of 59
    rayzrayz Posts: 814member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Flaneur View Post



    It's very possible that this particular move is directed squarely at scalpers. 

     

    My thoughts exactly.

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