Paperless Apple Stores

Great experience at my local Apple Store last night. I had to get some accessories for my iPhone, so I picked up my item, and headed to the cashwrap/Genius Bar. An intelligent employee saw my purposeful stride, and stepped out from behind the counter to ask if I was all set; I said yes, and he whipped out his PDA, accepted my card, scanned the barcode of my item, and we were all set.

This experience is not new; Apple has intelligently deployed these mobile checkout units for some time now. What happened next was a delight: the employee handed me my card back, and asked if I would prefer a printed receipt, or would I like it emailed to me? I happily replied that email was preferable, and he looked at his screen. "Well, looks like we don't have your email address on file; if you give it to me, I'll make sure we can send this and all future receipts to you." I did, and he associated it with the credit card I used. Within moments, my receipt appeared as a PDF attachment to an email in my inbox. Wow.

Why is this so great? First, you all know my particular hatred for the antiquated reliance on paper receipts. Second, I use Google Apps for Domain for my email; that means this receipt is now searchable in Gmail. If I ever need it, instead of groping around piles of yellowing paper, or trying to look through thousands of scanned images, I can just use Gmail to look for the very thing I want, and find my receipt in a second. Not to mention it finally brings physical retail to the level of convenience of ecommerce.

Another great innovation in Apple Retail. Well done, Cupertino.

Comments

Loyalty Review: Kohl's Yes2You

As some of you know, I've spent over 15 years in the customer loyalty space. So, when I come across a new retail loyalty program, I can't help but see the pluses and minuses. After this many years, it's kind of ingrained. Periodically, I'll share my thoughts with you. Today, it's Kohl's turn under the scope. Let's have a look, shall we? I've divided the review up into three sections: what's good about the program, what's bad about the program, and what I'd change about it. That last one has some actual value: I charged hundreds of dollars per hour for loyalty program consulting, and had over a dozen clients, before I moved to JustAnswer FT. But, being a pandemic and all, I'm giving it away for free here. Kohl's, you're welcome. Here we go! The Good Sign up is opt in Seems odd to praise Kohl's for this, but in department store loyalty, this is a rarity, and a smart one. It means the customers who are opted in are already prime

The Icarus Effect

This morning's news started with the latest grim proof of overdevelopment in a tough sector: SkyBus Airlines shut down , less than year from when it started. Never heard of Skybus? Not surprising; they chose to focus on trips from Ohio to the West Coast for ridiculously low fares. Yes, you read that right: the airlines' unique niche was that they focused on trips from Ohio . Was air travel such an amazingly profitable business that we needed that much segmentation and focus? Of course not. A year ago, when Skybus was just getting off the ground (har har), fuel costs were at an all time high. United was still in bankruptcy; Delta, a fellow airline with a major hub in Ohio, was just exiting Chapter 11. And yet, "irrational exuberance" led investors like Nationwide Mutual Capital, Huntington Capital Investment Co., and Battelle Services Co. to ignore the obvious signs of risk, and dive into what was a dubious investment. Today, they, and the passengers who were lured by

2020 CV19 Lockdown: Winners and Losers

It is said that in any time in history, the winners and losers are determined when a unique set of circumstances arises the requires an unprecedented response. How a company responds to those conditions can often propel them to new heights, or sentence them to an ignominious end. This post is meant to be an ongoing and often updated list of those that may come out of the Great 2020 Covid19 Lockdown as champs...or chumps. Winners Zoom How is it that, with all of the video conferencing choices in the market, a relatively obscure one (and a freemium one, to boot!) ran away with the title? Think of it: you had entrenched competitors like Skype and Facebook, as well as work-focused like Microsoft Teams , Google Hangouts , and Amazon Chime , any one of which had far greater reach than Zoom . Yet Zoom won, to the point that they achieved the exalted state of having their product/platform become a verb ("I'll Zoom you later"). More amazingly, they even continued their gro

Tretakoff Musings

Search This Blog