Apple Stores to take appointment bookings for Apple Watch

In the lead up to the March 9th debut of the Apple Watch, there was plenty of talk about how Apple retail stores would handle the sale of the watch. Apple was rumoured to be planning a complete revamp of its retail store experience ahead of the watch’s launch and we heard about special safes and the extra security measures Apple planned to put in place to protect against theft, as well as a new concierge service for Genius Bar appointments.

We expected to hear a lot more about these plans at the Apple Watch event and though Apple definitely mentioned the store experience, there wasn’t a whole lot of detail. The company just said you’d be able to try the watch on at the Apple Store. With pre-orders set for April 10th, 9to5Mac has some details on how Apple will wrangle the hordes of people that will no doubt flock to stores to see its newest device in the flesh.

According to 9to5Mac’s sources, Apple will offer 15-minute appointments for customers to get to know the watch. Customers supposedly won’t need an appointment but presumably those that do will be given priority. During the appointment, an Apple store employee will give you a guided tour of the watch at a special try-on station. There will be 10 stations per store in most cases (though busier stores may receive more tables to meet demand) and Apple will divide staff into four zones, one for people that want the Sport or Watch models, one for customers that know what watch and band they want, one for customers that don’t know what they want, and a dedicated zone for the gold Edition model.

In addition to the regular training, Apple will reportedly provide additional training for a pair of employees on the Apple Watch Edition. What’s still not clear is which stores will have the Edition. Apple has said it will only make a limited number and that not every store will sell the Edition.

The Apple Watch goes up for pre-order on April 10th and will officially go on sale on April 24th.

Read more: Hands-on with the Apple Watch

[source]9to5Mac[/source]