Best Buy Innovates... A Tiny Bit

One of the biggest frustrations of working at the Apple Store focused on iPod/iPhone cases. People would look at cases in their shiny packaging, and ask if they could open it up to try it. At the time, the policy was no since that would then be open merchandise. It was annoying for the customers, and led to unpleasant interactions at times for employees.

Best Buy of all people may have found a solution. If only it worked. Best Buy now offers the mobile "fitting room", allowing you to try cases on your iPhone before you buy. There's a large bowl of cases that a Best Buy employee can get if interested (check for a sign in the cell phone area of your local store for availability). Then, presumably, you would get to try these cases on your iPhone.

I tried out the service while looking for a case for the iPhone 3GS. There was one of those slick cases that doubles as a battery, and I asked if I could try it. They had it in the basket, but then the Best Buy employee warned, "That's the one we don't let people try because it's really snug." Hmm.. I came back with another, more pedestrian case, and tried again. "I don't have that case, but I have this one that's like it." "That case is hard, I think this one is soft," I replied. "Yeah, but it's not much softer than this one."

I was 0 for 2 in actually trying cases on the phone before purchasing. Maybe another retailer could implement this a little more elgantly...