I recently went to the Apple Store and it made me think about the whole experience of purchasing things that you already know you want — effectively, how self-service should be in any commercial transaction.

I showed up at the Apple Store intent on purchasing a new iPad2 with all the configurations already decided. I approached the first blue shirt employee I could find and asked how I might go about buying one. They directed me to go to the iPad station. I dutifully arrived there and waited for someone to tell me how to actually just get a box containing what I want. Eventually I snagged some blue shirt worker walking by who summarily told me to press a button to summon an iPad specialist rather than ask for his general assistance. After calling for iPad help through the least natural way possible (navigating my way through an iPad2 for the first time to find the specific help button on the iPad), I waited 10 minutes before someone came and realized I didn’t need to learn all about iPads before purchasing. That person finally checked the stock room for me only to tell me they didn’t have that model and to come back later (and just cut the line to go straight to the register).

Apple is fortunate enough to be such a desirable brand that I’ll suffer through all that, but most companies need to figure out how to better take money from customers who already know they want to spend it. The most infuriating experience to me in a commercial situation is when I want to give the merchant money but they aren’t making it easy to do so. Based on my experiences with some offline merchants, tech businesses should consider the following when designing their purchasing experiences:

• Transactions shouldn’t always require human interaction to complete. A lot of businesses require you to contact them to purchase a product or trial it. If people don’t want to deal with sales folk, they shouldn’t have to especially for small purchases. As decisions get more complicated and spend gets larger, people naturally do want help which should be accessible but not overbearing. That’s the point where an inside sales team should be ready to get in touch.

• Help should be accessible but not mandatory. You shouldn’t subject every user through a brutal learning process about their options if they know what they want to do.
• Support requests shouldn’t be restricted to one form. If I was actually having trouble with iPads, I shouldn’t have to use an iPad to get help. In contrast, Zappos provides almost every conceivable way to handle requests. I’m sure there is a happy medium between the two ends.
• Inventory needs to be in stock or deliverable upon availability. I shouldn’t find out at checkout that I need to return later because my desired configuration is sold out. You should still accept my order then and figure out a way to deliver it back to me later or let me know it’s ready to go when it is ready for delivery.

In some ways, IKEA and gasoline stations have got it figured it out when it comes to purchasing experiences and getting people to self-serve easily. Tech and digital media can learn a thing or two from offline experiences to design better purchasing and checkout processes.