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Apple to push customers from its stores to its site

Written by RetailWire Staff

The Apple product launch has become a cultural touchstone as familiar as the Black Friday mob scene. Fans form queues outside of Apple Stores that stretch down numerous blocks. They wake early to get a good spot, while others camp out. Entrepreneurs have even begun to sell their services as professional line-waiters, charging hourly rates to stand in as proxies.

However, the "big splash" product launch may become a thing of Apple's past. In a recently leaked memo obtained by Business Insider, Apple indicates it will aim for more measured launches and push customers to go online to buy their devices instead of its stores.

A portion of the memo, reportedly from Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, reads: "The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers. The Apple Store app and our online store make it much easier to purchase Apple Watch and the new MacBook. Customers will know exactly when and where their product arrives." It goes on to encourage Apple Store staff to tell customers to order their products online rather than waiting in line.

A TechCrunch article on the memo speculates the memo could, on one hand, pertain solely to the two products named. And yet Ms. Ahrendts may see successful product fulfillment as trumping headline-grabbing launch events.

Other contemporary boutique products also have a reputation for lines that have taken on a life of their own. At the height of the Cronut craze, for instance, data scientist Sheila Christine Lee reported on Quora (later reprinted on the Huffington Post) that she lined up outside of the Dominique Ansel bakery at 6 a.m. behind 60 others. While waiting, she was interviewed by a news program from The Netherlands and witnessed a man offering a woman $100 for one of the limited-run pastries.

But given how public opinion can swing from morbid curiosity to exhaustion when it comes to faddish events, perhaps its a forward-thinking move by Apple to reduce the spectacle surrounding its new product launches.

One also wonders if Ms. Ahrendts, who was formerly CEO of U.K. luxury retailer Burberry, finds frenzied product launches incompatible with the aesthetic changes that will accompany the Apple Watch.

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