Apple wants to improve online shopping

"the fact for me as a consumer is that I shop online mostly to avoid exactly those things (chatting with less knowledgeable customers and annoying store loudspeaker systems)"

Right. But the 'real world' experience might feel different online. The advantages might outweigh the downsides.

You could choose several levels of 'interaction', for example. You could allow "NO interaction" and have exactly the same experience you have right now. Or, you could allow "interaction with friends" when they show up in the iTunes store. (You could even get automated IMs alerting you to their appearance in the store.)

You could also choose to be open to new people whose "level of expertise" (rated by other users, I'd imagine) outranks yours. You could choose to have your music lists open to other shoppers, and theirs to yours, to find similarities and instructive differences in experience, and learn. You could allow IMs from people who share "70% or more" of your playlist, or bar anyone who ever bought a certain artist. (You know the one I mean.)

There are many ways the shopping experience could be expanded by interactions with other users. But if you or I want a quiet, solitary experience, we should have that option as well.

That move toward more interactivity is just the pendulum swinging. It's way over the top & after a year or two, things will go back to the way they were, in some respects.

Marketing can be very sheep-like... marketeers just follow the latest happenings & try to push things too far in trend directions. Sometimes it results in great things, but most of the time it flops.

POOL'S CLOSED

Sure, it looks cool, but online shopping is something to be kept simple. They need to focus on making it easy to manage your cart and get the shopping you need done, rather than wander around a second life clone.

It's the eWorld shop!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWorld

OK, how about lowering your rediculous prices first to "improve online shopping"?


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Church in the Texas Medical Center
http://ChurchInTheCenter.com

I too value my "customerless" and "employeeless" shopping experiences online. Sometimes even those "chat now!" buttons piss me off.

I love best buy, but they are a main offender of not leaving me alone. I also love the Apple store, but at least the ones in Seattle Metro area are easily crowded.

So I value my online bubble.

Don't they call this SecondLife(tm)?

Apple store at Second life!

Here's one way to make online shopping better: Actually let people bookmark pages in the Apple Store.