Sunday, October 7, 2007

Team Munster Divides and Conquers


Once a month Team Munster does a "Channel Blitz" in Minnesota. There are four Apple Stores here so Viv, Andrew, Judy and I would usually each drive out to one. But now that we have Andrew I'm able to run operations from home. That way I can use my 24" iMac and have the team log in with iChat for live shots. Naturally I wear a tie in case anyone at the stores should see me, but below the waist I'm in my boxers. Being a Senior Research Analyst has its advantages.


For the most part things went smoothly, though Paul caught a little heat from security as he was spinning the 17" Macbook Pro around so I could see the whole store at the Mall of America. And the reports were astounding. The team found that all of the stores were at capacity for most of the day, and products are flying off shelves into those cool Apple drawstring bags and out the door like it's December.

Which brings up an interesting situation: What is Apple going to do about traffic during the
 holidays? Judy thinks people are going to have to make appointments to shop at the Apple Store, sort of like making an appointment at the genius bar. Andrew took it a step further and suggested that Pro Care may be upgraded to included guaranteed shopping times. I like his style.

Whatever they do, they're going to have to do something, because I think the fire marshals are going to get involved in a big way, I kid you not.

2 comments:

Stan Scott said...

Much as love the idea of you in your boxers, it's 'waist', not 'waste'.

But seriously, I think that the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, NYC has it down. They have moveable carts with iPods and Shuffles, staffed with clerks with handhelds -- they can do each sale in under a minute. Other clerks with portables wander the store to do on-the-spot sales. This leaves the main registers, which run incredibly smoothly. I wish every retail store ran like this--I might start to enjoy Christmas shopping! Well, maybe not.

Gene said...

Thanks Stan. Typing too fast, thanks for catching the typo.

At least, I think that was the reason. Hope is wasn't Freudian.