Dive Brief:
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In an internal memo obtained by Business Insider, Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts has told employees that they should help shift customers from buying in stores to online. "This is a significant change in mindset, and we need your help to make it happen," she says in the memo.
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The move is an apparent attempt to avoid the long lines, disappointment at low inventories, and fisticuffs that accompanied the launch of the iPhones 6.
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In addition to the shift in sales approach, customers will have difficulty physically trying on the Watch, which will be displayed under glass cases in stores.
Dive Insight:
This is indeed a significant shift in mindset, to say the least. It’s hard to know how this will go over for customers. Still, a major role for an Apple Store already is as a showroom, so this approach perhaps is more of a shift of emphasis. Customers go to Apple Stores to try things out, take classes to familiarize themselves with their new products once they get them, and get technical and repair help.
But not being able to try out the Watch, which launches Friday? If true, that seems extreme, and potentially turf for other wearable retailers to claim. After all, there’s never been an Apple Watch before; it’s not a new rendition or upgrade as with new phones, iPads, or laptops. Is this a marketing ploy, to render the Watch with a “do not touch” rarity? Or is Apple worried about theft or destruction?
The shift to online is not the only one from Angela Ahrendts. Many of the stores, and even employees (or their garb at least), have undergone luxurifying upgrades in anticipation of the Watch debut. That's a change in branding that may or may not work for Apple fans, who come back to the company time and again for their new computers and phones, but may not consider themselves part of the new upscale Watch demographic.