Former Apple Retail Chief Takes On Amazon With Personalized Delivery

Former Apple retail chief and one-time JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson is launching a new online startup that sells smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets with free in-home setup services.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the company, Enjoy Technology, officially launched on May 5th for customers in San Francisco and will be available in New York on May 13th.

Users can buy devices for the same prices listed on manufacturers’ websites, and then have a “personal expert” deliver them and set them up at no extra cost.

The Enjoy premise is pretty simple. You go to the company’s website to buy your next device: everything from GoPro cameras to an Xbox One to laptops like HP’s EliteBook or Omen. The list of products currently offered is a lot smaller than your average brick-and-mortar or online retailer - and, no, you won’t find any Apple devices (so far). However, there’s a catch: When you buy from Enjoy, you’ll also get a personalized delivery experience.

“Enjoy experts will hand deliver technology products to customers at a place and time of their choosing, and spend an hour helping them get up and running. The Enjoy visit is offered free with every purchase made on GoEnjoy.com. In order to also help people get the most out of a technology product they already own, a customizable, paid Enjoy visit is available for $99,” reads a press release from Enjoy.

Our cursory check of pricing for the two GoPro cameras Enjoy offers - the Hero4 Silver and the Hero4 Black - shows that they cost the same from Enjoy as they would from Amazon.

AT&T will soon be partnering with Enjoy to allow shoppers in the New York City and San Francisco Bay Area to benefit from the service, for nothing, when they purchase select smartphones from AT&T’s online store. And, yes, those are the only two areas where Enjoy’s service is offered so far.

“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.

Who will be helping you set things up? “Enjoy Experts are all salaried employees of Enjoy. Not contractors,” the company said, perhaps in a nod to the troubles that startups like Uber have had with contractors. The company is accepting applications for new experts now.

Related: Multichannel Retailers Differentiate Themselves with Same Day Delivery