Person to Person Contact at the MAC Store

 The New Commerce?

Is Apple leading the way for a new in-store buying trend? Buying a laptop with my daughter at the Mac Store 5th Avenue, New York City, in May, 2012 led me to believe it.

The first thing you notice in the Mac Store on 5th Avenue is that it looks like a tourist attraction. People are standing outside the glass building (which looks like a large clear ice cube) to get their picture taken. Foreigners arrive and depart the building in troves. The glass architecture gives you a feeling of openness so that no matter how crowded it is you do not feel claustrophobic. I still hesitated before walking down the stairs, thinking that we would just be another couple lost in the madness of the multitudes. But then we were welcomed in by a friendly worker (hostess)  who asked if she could help us.

Within a few minutes (or seconds) we were greeted by our 'helper' (concierge) who brought us to a long table with rows displaying the two options we were looking to buy: the macbook 'pro' versus the macbook 'air'. At no time were we pressured to make a decision or to buy anything, and our concierge guided us through the pros and cons of each machine without being distracted by any other customers. That is, we had his full attention the entire time we were there.

When we finally made our decision he typed a few buttons and a few minutes (seconds) later our new laptop arrived to where we were standing. We did not have to move, go to a cash register or wait in line.

Without us having to move an inch he took my credit card and soon we were out the door with our new purchase. It was a completely satisfactory and stressless experience. We had human contact the whole time we were there; no annoying machine noises or impatient customers, loud speakers or waits at the check out counter.

Conversely, a few months ago I went into a CVS pharmacy in downtown New York where there was minimal human contact during my entire shopping experience. Speakers, machines and TV monitors told me where to go and there was only one human being employee in the whole store - a security guard - pointing the way when I got lost. Other than that security guard the machines, cameras, and speakers dictated my every move in the store. You'd have to scan your item in yourself at the check out counter - the machine tells you how much it costs - and you put your card or money in the machine - and you bag the item yourself.   I felt like I was being watched in a prison and swiftly exited without making any purchase. I predict that this mode of commerce will not have any future.

Buying something inside a physical store with a machine is a most depressing experience. Internet purchasing will not go out of fashion because it is too convenient, but physically going out of your house only to be met by machines telling you what to do, is the bottom of consumerism hell. Apple is smart enough to know that we will remember the physical experience 10x longer than we will remember a virtual internet purchase (if we remember internet purchases at all).

It is part of Apple's branding concept that you experience a 'service' similar to a luxury hotel. From the time you glimpse the building in the distance, to the walking down the stairs into the airy store, from dealing with their nice employees, to purchasing the beautifully designed product, to using their easy end-user product - it is all part of their total positive aesthetic branding.

As many retailers are foregoing a physical store for an entirely web presence, Apple is going in the opposite direction. It seems that the other stores might be behind the curve and Apple, once again, might be ahead of the curve. Apple might be acting on instinct (or a vision), that this is a new trend in buying merchandise: the “Person to person” contact. Eventually consumers are going to get tired of dealing only with machines and bots. Now if only the others would catch on to the idea.