From this morning’s Apple Press Release:
Apple Watch™, Apple’s most personal device yet, will be available for preview and pre-order on Friday, April 10. Customers in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US can try on and experience Apple Watch at their local Apple Store® or at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Isetan in Tokyo, Selfridges in London, and select Apple Authorized Resellers in Japan and China. Customers can pre-order their Apple Watch through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com) beginning April 10 at 12:01 a.m. PDT for delivery beginning April 24.
“We are excited to welcome customers tomorrow and introduce them to Apple Watch, our most personal device yet. Based on the tremendous interest from people visiting our stores, as well as the number of customers who have gone to the Apple Online Store to mark their favorite Apple Watch ahead of availability, we expect that strong customer demand will exceed our supply at launch,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores. “To provide the best experience and selection to as many customers as we can, we will be taking orders for Apple Watch exclusively online during the initial launch period.”
Apple is making it clear that they are driving all Apple Watch sales on line. To me, this sounds like a strategy to reduce traffic at the stores tomorrow or, at the very least, to improve efficiency by taking the ordering process out of the loop at the stores, let the staff focus specifically on previewing the Apple Watch.
That said, if you go into an Apple Store and try one on, my guess is that there will be some way for you to place a pre-order. I can’t imagine Apple will want to allow a single potential sale to go unclosed.
Starting Friday, customers can try on Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport or Apple Watch Edition* to find the model with the size, finish and band to best fit their personal preference and style. Everyone visiting an Apple Store will be able to view all three collections and get hands on with Apple Watch Demo to browse and edit different watch faces, and learn about Apple Watch’s health and fitness features, Digital Touch, Siri®, Apple Pay™** and more.
Pre-orders begin April 10 at 12:01 a.m. PDT through the Apple Online Store, the Apple Store app for iPhone® and iPad®, and select Apple Authorized Resellers in China and Japan. Customers who pre-order their Apple Watch can have it shipped for delivery beginning April 24. All Apple Watch customers will be offered Personal Setup, online or in-store, to pair their Apple Watch with their iPhone. New owners will also learn how to personalize Apple Watch by selecting a watch face, deciding which notifications to receive, setting up the Activity app, and receive an introduction to Apple Pay** and the Apple Watch App Store™.Beginning April 24, Apple Watch will also be available at boutiques in major cities including colette in Paris, Dover Street Market in London and Tokyo, Maxfield in Los Angeles and The Corner in Berlin, and select Apple Authorized Resellers in China and Japan.
Tomorrow is a big day for Apple.
Curious that the watches are hitting the boutiques so early. If they don’t sell well there and the boutiques stop showcasing them, it could be embarrassing. But if they had waited for the demand to be obvious, then the boutiques would have wanted the watches all the more. Interesting to see how this pans out.
I think I read somewhere that you could make appointments through the Apple Store app similar to how you make Genius Bar appointments. Probably through Apple Store on the web as well.
I think you’re right about efficiency. The watch can’t easily be physically tethered to the display table while still allowing it to be tried on. This means the in-store experience needs to be a 1-on-1 interaction, like you would get at a jewelry store. If there is a sale to be made, the store employee can’t really tell a potential customer “I’m sorry, our time is up.” By limiting orders to online only, the store employees are now able to limit the time spent with each customer: “I’m sorry, but it’s time for my next appointment. If you’re ready to make a purchase, please do so online. Otherwise, feel free to make another appointment.”
I would not be surprised if Apple has something in store where you can easily place orders. I’m sure at least store employees will assist people with placing orders if asked. This is all about crowd control and trying to make the experience as pleasant as possible.
Yes. I imagine that if the Apple employee demoing the Watch can’t or doesn’t take a pre-order, the customer will be handed off to a second employee who will take the order (and email the customer the receipt).
They’d better do a better job of managing their traffic and uptime than they did for the iPhone 6 launch. That was a disaster.
That’s why they are doing this like this. They are tired of the bad press from line fights. Tired of complaints about waiting in line, tired of issues with the poor saps working the line filing HR complaints about late breaks cause the person that was supposed to come out and take over was running late from a weird Sprint sale. Tired of resellers trying hog all the stock.
So the new product reservation system now includes a pick up time. No more folks standing around in a line. You try to walk up on the 24th and you will be sent to a computer or the Apple Store app on your phone to to book a reservation. If the app says no more slots for today, that’s the end of it. You wait til tomorrow. If the watch you want is out of stock, you wait til tomorrow. Try again. A lot of the folks losing their shit over this online push keep forgetting about the whole reservation system. Or how Apple always shows longer than reality wait times for that next batch of product to come out of the factory to account for issues. They would rather give themselves more time and surprise folks early than have some disaster and have to push back. Not unlike how the Geniuses always say 3-5 days even when they know for fact they can do whatever that night.
Not necessary to hand off anything. Help them try it on. Show them out to save their choices in the App and check out once they have pondered which they liked the most over that Double Double and Animal Fries or Burrito Bowl. If a customer needs more help than that, perhaps they shouldn’t get the watch. Cause the App couldn’t be any simpler to use for checking out
Oh, I totally agree if the customer has made his/her choice.
I tried the watch on yesterday. The volume of people at 5:15 was not heavy. Nothing like what I’ve seen for new iPhones.