Ron Johnson, former Apple retail chief and JC Penney CEO, has introduced a new startup called Enjoy Technology to change the way people order devices online.
Enjoy has started to sell high-end consumer electronics -smartphones, laptops, tablets, and even drones, on its website and makes the experience unique for buyers by offering a personal home delivery and in-home setup services for free.
Starting this week, Enjoy will serve customers in parts of New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. The gadgets will be sold at the same prices as in the manufacturers' websites.
"We're living in an on-demand delivery world," Johnson said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "We expect everything to come when and where we want. It's time to reinvent how we buy things."
Johnson said that Enjoy's profits would mostly come from the difference in wholesale prices the company has negotiated and what customers pay. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company plans to only sell gadgets that are worth $200 and up. Nevertheless, customers can also add cases and other accessories to their orders.
The former Apple chief admitted that customers may find other websites' device offerings cheaper than Enjoy's, but in this instance, they will have to pay an additional fee if they wanted help set the gadgets up.
Enjoy said that the device deliveries will be accomplished by any of its current 80 "experts." These experts can deliver the devices in as fast as four hours, can bring and install the gadget in the customer's home, workplace, or wherever they intend to have it delivered, and will spend as much as an hour with them setting up the device. Customers can opt to hire an Enjoy employee for $99 per hour to help them setup other devices, anywhere they want.
"Our product is a person - it's an Enjoy expert - and we invest heavily in selecting people who would flourish in this position," Johnson told Wired. "The art of our product is a visit."
The company currently employs 127 people in San Francisco and New York, and it's still looking to hire more.
Enjoy has $30 million in funding from investors that include Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz. The company has entered into partnerships with device makers that include GoPro, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and drone-maker DJI.
The company keeps its expenses to a minimum by carrying a small inventory, instead of depending on its partners to supply the devices as needed. Enjoy also pays its drivers a full salary and benefits based on a 24 to 45-hour work week, unlike most delivery firms today. The company says it can afford to do so because it doesn't have the infrastructure costs of a traditional retailer.
"Enjoy was founded on the simple premise that people need help and we believe that a human connection is the best way to help them. With Enjoy, we're delivering the first Personal Commerce platform, offering an entirely new way for customers to buy products and for our employees, an entirely new way to work," Johnson said, according to PC Magazine.
Johnson was Apple's vice president of retail operations for 11 years and is considered as the creator of the Genius Bar. He announced his resignation from the company in June 2011. Later, he served as the CEO of JC Penney and was ousted several months later after the company reported net losses in 2012 and 2013.
