Mac POS May Give You the Edge You Need
Envy
noun en·vy /′en-vē/
A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Ok, let’s all admit 
it — Apple is pretty cool. Their gadgets, super thin laptops and iMac’s are at the forefront of product design. Those who read Steve Jobs’ biography know he was fanatical about design. From the look and feel of the original iPhones to the construction of the box and the layout of Apple stores … the list goes on forever. Jobs chose to spend more on the packaging for iPods, simply to enhance design and customer experience. The same goes with the Apple stores. There were many full-scale model stores built in a warehouse until the store was “just right.”
The following quote from Steve Jobs speaks volumes, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” To Jobs it was all about the customer experience, the little details that actually do matter.
Essentially, you live in a different world than Jobs. You are a retailer with vendors messing up orders and part time employees creating accounting errors. Store mock ups or buying boxes that are 10 times more expensive than others is not at the forefront of your mind. But it doesn’t mean that design and customer experience can’t be what gives you an edge.
How many times have you walked into a store with an iMac at the counter running a mac POS and thought, “Wow!”? Apple envy is a healthy (and normal) emotion. A mac POS is cool. Compare it to traditional point of sale systems or even cheap, out-dated computers running point of sale software. What sits on your counter speaks volumes. “Clean, sleek and modern,” is what an Apple product says. An old dusty PC-based POS system running 15-year-old POS software says, “I could be going out of business soon” or maybe it looks like you don’t care. It is the retail equivalent of a dirty bathroom in a restaurant. Maybe your Apple envy isn’t that strong and you want a PC instead of a mac POS. That’s fine, too. But take a success tip from Steve Jobs. The details and customer experience matter.
