Former Apple retail head Ron Johnson launches Enjoy, a sales and setup service
Former JC Penney CEO and one-time Apple retail head Ron Johnson on Wednesday launched a new company, Enjoy Technology, that will not only sell products like smartphones, drones, notebooks, and tablets, but also offer free personal delivery and setup for orders.
The company is Web-based, and currently only serving parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, the latter starting on May 13. It's also limited to a few dozen different devices, such as the GoPro Hero4, the DJI Phantom 3, various Sonos speakers, and Microsoft's Xbox One and Surface Pro 3.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Johnson said that Enjoy will only sell electronics costing $200 or more, in some cases with optional accessories.
He added that while some websites may have lower prices, Enjoy is unique in including free setup sessions, which last up to an hour. People can also have an expert come out to help with a product they already own at a cost of $99 per visit.
Beginning May 19th, Enjoy will offer phones resold by AT&T, including the iPhone. Shoppers on AT&T's website will have the option of regular delivery or having an Enjoy expert come out at no extra cost. Enjoy, though, will get a cut of AT&T's revenue, the Journal said.
Another difference with Enjoy is that it's maintaining better labor standards than some other Internet delivery services, which offen treat workers as contractors. Each of Enjoy's 80 or so experts is getting a full salary with benefits, spanning a work week between 25 and 45 hours determined by the employees themselves. The company says this is possible because it doesn't have any traditional infrastructure costs.
The inspiration for Enjoy have may come from Johnson's 12-year tenure at Apple, where he was credited with guiding the Apple Store chain from its early days into a multinational success. Each outlet offers a service called Personal Setup, which is also free and takes buyers through the basic steps of using products like iPhones, Macs, and the Apple Watch.
The company is Web-based, and currently only serving parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, the latter starting on May 13. It's also limited to a few dozen different devices, such as the GoPro Hero4, the DJI Phantom 3, various Sonos speakers, and Microsoft's Xbox One and Surface Pro 3.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Johnson said that Enjoy will only sell electronics costing $200 or more, in some cases with optional accessories.
He added that while some websites may have lower prices, Enjoy is unique in including free setup sessions, which last up to an hour. People can also have an expert come out to help with a product they already own at a cost of $99 per visit.
Beginning May 19th, Enjoy will offer phones resold by AT&T, including the iPhone. Shoppers on AT&T's website will have the option of regular delivery or having an Enjoy expert come out at no extra cost. Enjoy, though, will get a cut of AT&T's revenue, the Journal said.
Another difference with Enjoy is that it's maintaining better labor standards than some other Internet delivery services, which offen treat workers as contractors. Each of Enjoy's 80 or so experts is getting a full salary with benefits, spanning a work week between 25 and 45 hours determined by the employees themselves. The company says this is possible because it doesn't have any traditional infrastructure costs.
The inspiration for Enjoy have may come from Johnson's 12-year tenure at Apple, where he was credited with guiding the Apple Store chain from its early days into a multinational success. Each outlet offers a service called Personal Setup, which is also free and takes buyers through the basic steps of using products like iPhones, Macs, and the Apple Watch.
Comments
I wonder what the price markup is. More than what the neighbor kid charges??
Well, hopefully it works out. He hasn't exactly been drowning in success since he left Apple.
He certainly hasn't but I thought he was on the right track with JC Penny and given time it could have worked. In any case I wish him well.
The nice thing about Genius Bar appointments is that you know exactly when they will be.
The biggest mistake he made at JCP was changing pricing right away. That should have been the last thing he did or at least pricing should have only changed as these stores within a store were completed. Instead you had the same crappy stores with crappy merchandise but all the sales and coupons were gone. He should have redesigned the stores and merchandise first, then tackled pricing.
I agree. Jc Pennies hired him to shake things up and he did. He cleaned the stores up, brought in better merchandise, and brought the store within a store concept to pennies. He also came up with the jcp rebranding.
He needed more time to bring in people who hadn't in the past thought of pennies. He also made some mistakes that alienated old time shoppers, namely getting rid of expensive coupons. It was a catch twenty two though because pennies brought him into bring in younger customers.
Agreed. It was the doing away with coupons and changing the pricing model around before finishing the other improvements that did him in. He, however, was likely trying to pay for the upgrades by cutting costly coupons and sales.
Oh, I don't think so.
He certainly hasn't but I thought he was on the right track with JC Penny and given time it could have worked. In any case I wish him well.
He took a lot of flack for the changes he made at JC Penny. Personally, I thought the changes he tried to make, like getting rid of coupons and fake sales and upscaling the experience made a lot of sense. But I was wrong as well. And he certainly had success at Target bringing in a few designers to give the (false) impression that Target had become more stylish and upscale.
Those changes didn't make sense to JC Penny customers. I read numerous news reports where JC Penny regular customers said that they liked searching for bargains using coupons and the like, even when they were told that they'd save just as much money with the new sales policy. The fact is that JC Penny's customers were completely illogical, but they were used to a way of shopping and they didn't want to change. It's said that sales dropped 32% in the last quarter before he resigned. That's huge! Those customers must have really hated the store.
While the web and the advent of Apple's retail stores have completely changed consumer behavior, there are obviously still consumers who haven't changed much and don't want to change. The same is probably true for Walmart and K-Mart customers.
Trying to upscale the JC Penny experience is like having a local bodega try to sell expensive salmon or caviar. It's not why consumers go there. Not every retailer can be Apple.
So I don't blame him for trying to upscale JC Penny, but I don't think it would have worked, even in the long run.
His new venture doesn't make a lot of sense to me. San Francisco and New York are probably the last places where people need a new third party to purchase phones and setup services from. There are more phone stores than Starbucks. I live in a neighborhood in Queens, NY where on the main local shopping street, there are 10 phone stores within three blocks plus a still-existing (obviously independently owned) Radio Shack. And I don't think most people have a problem re-synching a new phone. I'm surprised he's even bothering - he certainly doesn't need any money.
He certainly hasn't but I thought he was on the right track with JC Penny and given time it could have worked. In any case I wish him well.
What he tried to do at JC Penny was nuts.
There is no single reason the Apple Store works so well, but here are some of them (and these were true from the beginning):
1. Compelling (and fairly unique) products
2. A premium brand
3. Affluent, loyal customers
JPC had *none* of those things. JPC had:
1. Mundane, commodity products
2. A discount brand
3. Cheap customers with no loyalty
Johnson tried changing all three for JCP at once. It was impossible and ill-conceived. He might as well have tried changing JCP into an automobile manufacturer or a wine maker.
It was funny going into JC Penney's under RJ's reign. Seeing the employees use iPhones with Card Swipers like Apple Stores use. Made me teary eyed...then YANK! he was gone.
You can't change 2 and 3 without changing 1 first and that's not something you do overnight. I wish it would have worked because Macy's and Kohls are garbage and clearly could use some competition. Even some of the specialty stores like Gap, JCrew and Banana Republic are pretty crappy and in some cases overpriced. There's not a lot of good places to buy clothes these days.
There was nothing wrong with JCP. It's fine, everyday stuff. Their quality control is known to be better than Nordstroms.
Say what you will, but JCP is simply middle-class America and people like when things go on sale. Most stores do that!
IMO, Kohl's basically took away JCP's market share while JCP was floundering.
The inspiration for Enjoy have may come from...
Well, the accompanying photo depicts two models huddling around a Surface, so... yeah, the inspiration was more likely (needlessly) complex CE products.
Instead of creating/selling intuitive devices to begin with, we now have a parasitic venture that attempts to devalue Apple's paradigm for ease of use out-of-the-box. Brilliant¡
(Can we start a meme about this new Anti-Apple Tax?)
Many post-mortems I read about his tenure at JCP pointed to one of his biggest failures being management style. Managers and employees complained of his (and his team's) arrogance and condescension; moreover, almost the entire top management team that he hired flew in from elsewhere (in his case, Palo Alto) to manage the company at its Texas HQ for a day or two, and then left.
Regardless of what else he changed, his approach to being a leader did not seem to work very well.
You can't change 2 and 3 without changing 1 first and that's not something you do overnight. I wish it would have worked because Macy's and Kohls are garbage and clearly could use some competition. Even some of the specialty stores like Gap, JCrew and Banana Republic are pretty crappy and in some cases overpriced. There's not a lot of good places to buy clothes these days.
Why would number 2 have to change? In terms of department store price scales, they aren't going to become Saks. They aren't going to compete with Macy's either. Target actually did quite well with the branding aspect for a store that sells cheap stuff. The same goes for Ikea. He just requires something beyond an aging customer base that currently lacks replacement.