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Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#531

Post by Retric »

gizajob wrote: post #464
dcchambers wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apples pricing structure is also annoying nowadays too. As soon as one specs out and bumps a laptop, one suddenly finds that they may as well get a different laptop, ie once you bump up a MacBook Air, you may as well just buy a Pro, until all of a sudden your £999 purchase idea has turned into £3000 and a debate about AppleCare. Their pricing structure on basically all of their product lines is absolutely perfect f…

Well, it's not exactly perfect because I was in the mood to simply buy a basic Air, until I was pretty well talked out of it by sales staff, so instead of an easy £1099 in the till, in their attempt to turn that into £2500, they got £0. That isn't good business. Also, the tedium of nowadays knowing that all the products will be bumped in spec in 9-12 months means that instead of excitement, buyer's remorse has alread…

From a business perspective it’s hard to argue that their approach isn’t working even if they don’t sell to you that’s irrelevant the only thing the bottom line cares about is the totals not individual slaws.

A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple. It’s also why they don’t cater to the low end of the market.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#532

Post by oefrha »

type0 wrote: post #400
sq_ wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight tangent to your tangent, but, after a poor experience last week, I'm really disappointed in how Apple handles specifically support in their stores. Historically, I've been able to just throw in a few little bits of "yup, I know how that works" so that their techs realize that I know what I'm talking about and let up with the patronizing assumptions about what I do and don't know. However, this time, when deali…

> Hopefully I can get somewhere with the phone support people, but it's really disappointing that they don't train their techs in the stores to feel out what a customer knows or at least drop some of the "oh the user doesn't know anything" if customers are showing that they do, in fact, know things. I think they have homogenized support to treat each user as equally non-technical, it's by design. Apple is like a sect…

I was able to talk highly technical stuff to their Mac support engineers at least. Even found a bypass in their diagnosis machine’s data protection scheme and told them about it lol, their was a few months ago.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#533

Post by lemax »

hghid wrote: post #197

Slightly tangential rant, but is anybody else becoming frustrated with the process of buying Apple products in Apple stores? For me, it started with the Apple Watch - I knew which one I wanted and was ready just to head down and buy one, but I was forced to sit through an entire "fitting" with patronising explanation on how to use the knob on the the side. Recently, I wanted to buy a new Phone. Again, I knew the one…

I too find the it patronizing to shop in-store – it seems the staff are trained to assume everyone has less knowledge of the products than they do – this might work in other consumer retail environments but not when you're selling "Pro" level products. The tone and efficiency of the retail experience is much better at a store like Adorama or B&H (NYC pro photo/video shops). Not to mention the irritating processes and many touchpoints of reaching the right person in an Apple store

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#534

Post by FireBeyond »

Retric wrote: post #531
gizajob wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not exactly perfect because I was in the mood to simply buy a basic Air, until I was pretty well talked out of it by sales staff, so instead of an easy £1099 in the till, in their attempt to turn that into £2500, they got £0. That isn't good business. Also, the tedium of nowadays knowing that all the products will be bumped in spec in 9-12 months means that instead of excitement, buyer's remorse has alread…

From a business perspective it’s hard to argue that their approach isn’t working even if they don’t sell to you that’s irrelevant the only thing the bottom line cares about is the totals not individual slaws. A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple. It’s also why they don’t cater to the low end of the market.

> A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple.

Revenue, not profit.

And you're going to have to convince me that it's 50/50 that a consumer who came in looking to buy a $1,000 MBA is going to be convinced to walk out with a $3,000 MBP. Because I think that number is closer to 1 in 20 (and I think I'm still being generous there).

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#535

Post by FireBeyond »

efitz wrote: post #403
konschubert wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s just bad service, cargo culting the Steve Jobs Store move

I think it’s more than that; I suspect that they have pretty onerous internal store processes about inventory control and device transfer to minimize employee theft.

And yet they were still one of the companies most noted for their onerous 'unpaid bag check' stuff.

At some point you either have to point to their inventory system being a problem, and/or them having a very low trust view of their employees, and it's the customers who get to waste their time as a result.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#536

Post by FireBeyond »

Gigachad wrote: post #427
XorNot wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you get how insane this sounds as an experience though? I'm physically in the store, saying "just let me pay for your product so I can leave" and the default is to try and drag that interaction out? The existence of workarounds doesn't make it not stupid.

Not really. Apple is catering to the majority of consumers who don't arrive at the store with their exact purchase ready to go. They want to be guided and shown all the options. And if you are in the small % who don't want this. Either go to one of the other retail stores selling the product, or order it online for pickup or delivery.

Citation needed. "Most Apple customers don't know what they want and need expert assistance and guidance."

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#537

Post by mwint »

charcircuit wrote: post #381
zinodaur wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet they need time to ramp up their manufacturing. In the meantime - they can either artificially restrict the purchase of these things (what they are doing now), or have scalpers camp outside the stores and resell for 2-3x what apple are selling them for. If they can actually deliver on their promises - they will fucking sweep the VR market. Current VR headsets blow chunks. If the meta quest cost 10$ - people woul…

If the vision pro were free people wouldn't use it for normal things either because it is unpleasant compared to using a phone, monitor, macbook, tv.

This is a very strong statement about an unreleased product in a nascent field. What are you basing it on?

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#538

Post by wisty »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #422
hghid wrote: post #197

Slightly tangential rant, but is anybody else becoming frustrated with the process of buying Apple products in Apple stores? For me, it started with the Apple Watch - I knew which one I wanted and was ready just to head down and buy one, but I was forced to sit through an entire "fitting" with patronising explanation on how to use the knob on the the side. Recently, I wanted to buy a new Phone. Again, I knew the one…

I worked Apple Retail many many moons ago. The senior manager once told me (manager -> senior manager -> store leader) “Your job is not to sell products, we could put all this inventory out there on a pallet with a credit card swiper and sell all of them. Your job is to sell attachments, primarily Apple Care”. Seriously, sales volume was a footnote. You are entirely judged on your attach rate for whatever it is corpo…

If that's still the case, I can imagine why they'd want a customer who knows exactly what they want to walk to the store next door to get the item elsewhere.

A customer who already knows exactly what configuration they want is probably going to be hard to sell AppleCare to.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#539

Post by FireBeyond »

crooked-v wrote: post #299
hghid wrote: post #197

Slightly tangential rant, but is anybody else becoming frustrated with the process of buying Apple products in Apple stores? For me, it started with the Apple Watch - I knew which one I wanted and was ready just to head down and buy one, but I was forced to sit through an entire "fitting" with patronising explanation on how to use the knob on the the side. Recently, I wanted to buy a new Phone. Again, I knew the one…

The giant reason to do this with the headset in particular is that getting it wrong means a literally painful and/or nauseous experience. Meta is willing to let that happen with its $300 headsets mostly bought as gifts for children, but the bar is a lot higher for a $3500 device and Apple is already acutely aware of the blowback from "you're holding it wrong"-type scenarios.

> Apple is already acutely aware of the blowback from "you're holding it wrong"-type scenarios.

And the funny thing about what the legions of Apple faithful who were willing to pretzel themselves into contortions defending that.

(For a more reason, mention Batterygate and watch them come out and tell you how you just don't understand, Apple was absolutely doing you a favor, somehow.)

(Just like when they quoted me $900 to fix faulty charging on a MacBook, device worked perfectly, battery was healthy, just could not be charged. "Perhaps we should talk about getting you into a new Mac instead...?")

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#540

Post by Retric »

FireBeyond wrote: post #534
Retric wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a business perspective it’s hard to argue that their approach isn’t working even if they don’t sell to you that’s irrelevant the only thing the bottom line cares about is the totals not individual slaws. A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple. It’s also why they don’t cater to the low end of the market.

> A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple. Revenue, not profit. And you're going to have to convince me that it's 50/50 that a consumer who came in looking to buy a $1,000 MBA is going to be convinced to walk out with a $3,000 MBP. Because I think that number is closer to 1 in 20 (and I think I'm still being generous there).

The MBP is both more expensive and has a higher profit margin, so when I say 3x the profit I do mean 3x profit.

Anyway, most people who walk in wanting a 1,000 MBA end up buying something even if it’s a 1,000$ MBA that’s just breakeven. So no they don’t upsell 50% on a 2.5k laptop with much higher margins, but that or no sale is not the only possibility.

Some people buy nothing or what the intended walking in, other people buy an 1k laptop with extended care, others by 2.5k laptops etc. So looking holistically if they lose 200 million in profit from lost sales but make it up with profit of 100 million in 3 different categories that’s a win.

PS: Something that’s not obvious is sales people don’t use the same pitch for everyone who walks in the door nor do they all execute every sale perfectly.

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