Oh it gets better than that, I walked into the store and asked to buy a MacBook Air.
The first clerk disappears, and some kid who is roughly 19 starts lecturing me about how much better the pro is. I politely respond, I just want to buy the Air.
He insists, 'well , do you want to make music '. I respond, 'please sell me the Air'. At this point he's not budging. I ask a final time, and ask why are you making this interaction so difficult.
Him: 'well you're making it difficult'.
I walk out and go to Best Buy. At Best Buy I simply asked to buy an Air, and I was out in 5 minutes.
Now truth be told, if the kid would have told me he needs to push a certain number of pros per month, I might have said okay and brought one. But instead he decided to insult me, I even explained that as a software engineer I knew exactly what I was talking about. I shouldn't need to explain anything when I'm trying to buy a product, it's none of your business if I prefer an M1 air because I routinely dropped my laptops. If it's a gift for someone else, or in reality it does the job I need it to do.
I'm legitimately never going into an Apple store again after this.
That is shocking to me, and you'd be doing everybody else a favor if you let the store know about it, so that guy can be terminated or at least retrained. I've never had an experience anything like that, and I know that's not the norm at Apple stores. Wow!
Ohh that's just mean, I'm not trying to get anyone fired. I'll just never shop at an Apple store again. I'm sure plenty of people walk in wanting to spend the least amount possible.
Then end up leaving with a 2500$ computer, no big deal it's only 200$ a month.
You certainly have no responsibility at all to help a multi-trillion dollar company fix themselves! Nor to ever shop with that company. You do you!
That said, I hope my comment and the subsequent upvotes make it clear that your experience seems very unusual. I have never felt pressured to buy anything on my numerous visits, and was even talked into buying a cheaper option of two things I considered once, and another time it was suggested I go to Best Buy rather than buy anything from Apple.
They're not paid commission to avoid situations like the one you described, so it's really strange to me that happened. That's all!
Other comments down stream indicate they do have KPIs. Maybe the kpis are for financing, I'm not sure. Someone who goes into a store only looking to buy a MacBook Air is probably doing so because of cost.
So logically you want to push as many people into buying more if you want to sell the financing.
Regardless, the entire point of BNPL is to encourage you to buy more than you need.
Well, do be aware... I don't think that Best Buy _technically_ pays commissions based on sales, but they do often have reps from brands around who will try to sell you heavily on their product (e.g. Samsung reps.)
I've also heard stories that while you won't get a commission, you may get more perks at work for higher sales numbers.
In any case, your experience at Apple sounds insane.
Best Buy isn't perfect, but in general they're much lighter on the 'advice' they try to give you. Their commission is in selling useless warranties, if a clerk does a good job I'll buy one as a tip.
There's no commission at Best Buy. IIRC, Circuit City was the last major US-based electronics retailer to end commission-based sales, and that happened in... 2004, maybe? Something like that.
Employees are judged on warranty sales, and when I worked at Circuit City back in the days when they, uh, existed, we were also judged based on profitability of sales.
> Now truth be told, if the kid would have told me he needs to push a certain number of pros per month, I might have said okay and brought one.
Which is why they nag you. I don't really understand this mindset but there's no question it exists. And there's no question the paperclip machine will have its goddamn paperclips.
Probably the 19yr old will eventually get turned into Solyent and replaced with a more polite/savvy version - and you will succumb and buy a pro you don't need just to be nice. And numbers will tick upwards.
What's weirder about this is that... most 'pros' really need more than stock stuff you can get at a retail store anyway. If you need an M2 MBP, you probably want it to be 64g or 96g, and probably want 2tb storage. I've never seen anything but stock/base configurations at retail stores (best buy, apple, etc). Perhaps they occasionally have variations? Or the stores I've been to are just... lower on the priority list for top-end configurations?
The first clerk disappears, and some kid who is roughly 19 starts lecturing me about how much better the pro is. I politely respond, I just want to buy the Air.
He insists, 'well , do you want to make music '. I respond, 'please sell me the Air'. At this point he's not budging. I ask a final time, and ask why are you making this interaction so difficult.
Him: 'well you're making it difficult'.
I walk out and go to Best Buy. At Best Buy I simply asked to buy an Air, and I was out in 5 minutes.
Now truth be told, if the kid would have told me he needs to push a certain number of pros per month, I might have said okay and brought one. But instead he decided to insult me, I even explained that as a software engineer I knew exactly what I was talking about. I shouldn't need to explain anything when I'm trying to buy a product, it's none of your business if I prefer an M1 air because I routinely dropped my laptops. If it's a gift for someone else, or in reality it does the job I need it to do.
I'm legitimately never going into an Apple store again after this.