Apple Pushes Late Shoppers to Its Retail Stores

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 4:30PM EST · Published Dec 22, 10:25AM EST

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Apple Pushes Late Shoppers to Its Retail Stores — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

[cnxvideo id=”655379″ placement=”ros”]As it becomes too late for people to get gifts by overnight shipping, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has started to push people to its 275 U.S. stores. The plan allows people to shop for items in the stores or order them online for pickup.

The program takes a page from brick-and-mortar retailers that employ the same tactic as a means for customers to avoid overnight shipping fees. In Apple’s case, it is a way to stuff revenue in the few hours left before the stores close on Christmas Eve.

Apple has an opportunity to increase the success of locations that are already successful. Several industry retail research reports say Apple’s stores have the highest yield per square foot of any major store chain.

“Items in stock” can be ordered by 2 p.m. on December 23 to pick up at a store the next day. The Apple pitch is simple and straight: “Last-minute gifts that are first on their list.” Given the popularity of Apple products, particularly the iPhone 7, the promotion has the benefit of being true in many instances.

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Interestingly, the Apple Watch is promoted ahead of the iPhone. The smartwatch has been deemed a failure. Apple may be able to cushion that some with a strong holiday.

Cleverly, Apple is promoting gift cards, which allows Apple to collect revenue from people who will shop later.

Apple also has decided to promote accessories, among them some it does not make. Alongside Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphone, shoppers can buy Belkin chargers, GoPro cameras and Logi stands.

A very limited number of items can be ordered for pickup in an hour.

Finally, the most obvious last-minute gift is iTunes — movies and music without wrapping paper.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.