Walked into an Apple Store yesterday and tried to buy something — I found out they had removed all the registers and replaced most of the store with six large wooden tables (“back to school” style, perhaps?) with electronics things on them (iPod stuff moved to the back). So I tracked down someone to ask where the registers where (“the question of the day”, he said), and how I could check out. Turns out you line up at the orange shirt guy, and the blue shirt people will occasionally help you check out with little UPS style pad things. I asked to get a receipt and joked “does it come out from the underside of one of those big tables?”. Yes, it does. Which table also seems random so the blue shirt guy has to walk around and check all the tables to see which one the receipt is printed from.
I am sure that is much more efficient than allocating a few square feet for a checkout register.
