Yes. The last time I was there to buy an iphone they said: “Someone will help you in 30 minutes, let me put your name in the queue. Oh, and you have to go stand and wait in the corner. No, you cannot leave the store to get coffee, if you do you will lose your place in the queue.”
I counted 14 workers and maybe 3x as many customers in the store, with at least 5 workers just standing around doing nothing.
It’s clever. They’re essentially hacking your attention by taking advantage of the fact that you already signaled you have money and are willing to spend it. Getting you in the store and putting the hardware in front of you is the hardest part, and you did that yourself.
This is why people on a budget go to the grocery store with a list. The physical experience is designed to sell you more, and Apple has the margins to to design the fuck out of that experience.
If you did not enjoy the Apple Store experience you should absolutely not go there again. You are in charge of your time and attention. Only you get to decide how to spend it.
I don’t have the same negative experience as others in this thread with the Apple Store, but I understand it. I would liken it to a car dealership, which I refuse to do business with after it once took five hours to buy a car from one. Lots of people are totally fine with it, but it’s not for me.
Near me, they keep the products locked up in the back room, and the person who you talk to on the floor often doesn't have direct access and needs to find the person who has access to get them the product.
It makes sense. There's not a pile of 1000 Macbooks on a pallet back there. It's locked up in a cage, and they go in and get one at a time.
This may not come as a surprise, but the practice of locking up expensive shit so people can't go grab stuff they aren't supposed to isn't unique to the Apple Store.
I've worked places that used this kind of process. It doesn't turn a 10 minute visit into a 50 minute visit without some kind of underlying issue blocking the cage pull from happening. Something along the lines of an interpersonal communication failure (forgot to request cage pull, person with key forgot/never got the request or the person with the key has gone into hiding ), a technical fluke (cage has electronic lock and it's EMP day), or a freak accident (person with the key, as well as the key itself, got disintegrated by ball lightning). As long as there isn't anything blocking, a cage pull is 10-15 min. If the person with the key was busy with a client, the requestor would normally take that over so they can run to the cage without the delay of having to finish that client.
Costco manages to do this well. If you buy a Mac (or almost any other high-value small item) you take a paper slip which is scanned by the cashier or self checkout. You then go to the cage and they hand you your item right then and there.
Gemstones are also not worth anywhere near what the gem store would like you to think. Just try selling them back to the store you bought them from and see how much less they are willing to give you.
I counted 14 workers and maybe 3x as many customers in the store, with at least 5 workers just standing around doing nothing.