DISCUSSION

Are Apple Watch demos a blueprint for future tech product debuts?

April 15, 2015Written by RetailWire Staff

Word of Apple Watch preorders hitting an estimated one million in the first day seems to answer the question about whether the devices, which average in the range of $380 to $720 depending on the model, will sell. But one particular aspect of how the product rollout was managed could have broader implications for how brick-and-mortar storefronts function in the omnichannel era. A survey found nearly all the people who scheduled a try-on appointment for an Apple Watch ended up preordering one.

Apple Insider reported that Timothy Arcuri of financial services firm Cowen and Company conducted an informal survey of retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area, speaking to several dozen employees at each retail outlet. According to the analyst's team, "between 85 and 90 percent of those who had an appointment to try on the Apple Watch bought in to the device."

The try-on experience for Apple Watches, as reported on in a separate Apple Insider article, lasts 15 minutes at the Apple Store. Try-on sessions can be scheduled either at an Apple Store or online. Apple Insider reported that during the trial a user is not able to integrate the watch with his or her own phone as the Apple Watches are running demo software, but there are functional watches mounted on the walls that customers can play with further.

In a video posted on YouTube by Re/Code's Katherine Boehret, the try-on experience appears more like something one would expect at a jewelry store than a technology retailer. The video culminates with Ms. Boehret being led to a different, more exclusive part of the store to try on the $17,000 high-end version of the Apple Watch.

The success of the try-on model in promoting sales may still run into problems when it comes to fulfillment. USA Today reports that the estimated wait times for preorder shipments of Apple Watches were already stretching into August.

Still, one wonders if companies like Google aren't taking notes on the ups and downs of Apple's new method of curated showrooming and trying to determine if it could work beyond the Apple Store. Google recently began trying to find its footing in the world of brick-and-mortar with a store-within-a-store concept inside a computer store in London.

Discussion Thread0