“While information about Apple’s new iOS app and retail plans have leaked out in various forms over the past few weeks, we now have the whole story thanks to a trusted source,” Jonathan S. Geller reports for BGR. “On Thursday, Apple’s new retail store app for iOS will launch, and it will bring two major features with it. First, it will enable online ordering with retail store pick up. This has already started happening in a few stores in California and New York City Apple stores as well, and more stores will go live on Thursday.”
Geller reports, “The other major feature coming in Apple’s new app? Customer self check-out at retail stores. This is a huge deal and Apple is the first to be able to put it together. Here is how this will work: after you find the item you want to buy, like an accessory, you launch the Apple Store app on your iOS device and there will be an option to buy a product in the store. You scan the product with the camera on your device in the app, click purchase, and it will charge whatever credit card is associated to your Apple ID. You then just walk out of the store. Yes, we have been told that Apple will not be checking purchases which seems hard to believe, but this self-checkout option will launch Thursday worldwide at all Apple retail stores.”
Much more in the full article here.
This isn’t all that different from the current process, where a roving store clerk swipes your card and takes your e-mail address for the receipt. Once (s)he sends you on your way, nobody checks at the door if you had paid. They can’t anyway, since your receipt is in the e-mail. At least with the self check-out, presumably some security guard could possibly ask you to show him the e-mail with your receipt (to self-checkout, you would have to have an iOS device, which will then give you immediate access to your e-mail). Obviously, Apple trusts their customers and isn’t treating them as possible thieves.
Yes – but who gives me my Apple Bag that I can take it all home in?
And do I get the sales commission?
Apple bag!!! 😀 😀 😀 I love those sturdy white and grey string-bags 🙂
And Ohh… sales commission! 🙂
Doesn’t the fact that you have to register your product in order to use it make it unlikely that folks will walk out without paying?
How do you register an iPhone bumper case?
“Apple will not be checking purchases which seems hard to believe.”
I think it’s in the “bag” as mentioned in a previous post.
@jeffmac7101 do I now have to register an iPhone case, keyboard, or hard drive?
This will be a welcome addition as I had to wait 45 minutes to buy my wife a regular old 16gig WiFi iPad2 last week. I didn’t need any advice or help with setup, just give em my money, but it was 45 minutes after requesting a product specialist. Don’t get me wrong, though, I didn’t mind waiting because as both an Apple fanatic and a stockholder, it was great to see how busy they were. Plus I got to check out a lot of cool apps I’d never seen before.
I can see the value of moving things along, but I wonder if they will lose the extra, impulse buys that people make while waiting their turn with an associate?
Whatever they possibly lose in impulse purchases (I don’t think very much anyway), they will more than make up for with people visiting the store and using the app just for the novelty of trying it out.