LAS VEGAS—Enjoy, the online-only consumer electronics marketplace and concierge service launched a year ago by former Apple retail guru and ex-J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson, will more than double its current footprint in time for the back-to-school shopping season, Johnson said today during a fireside chat here at the Shoptalk 2016 retail conference.
Enjoy offers products from partners including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Jawbone, Garmin and Apple. Its fleet of “experts” delivers purchases in a matter of hours and helps customers set them up for no additional charge. The startup initially offered services in the San Francisco and New York City markets; in addition to expanding to Los Angeles and Chicago—moves announced in late March—Enjoy will roll out in six additional major markets including Dallas, Houston and Miami over the next several months.
“We hand-deliver products wherever you want. We’ll deliver you an iPad Pro, download the software and connect it to all your other devices,” Johnson explained today. “The magic is the experience. We don’t build stores. We just hire people. It’s a lot less expensive than building stores.”
Enjoy has now raised $80 million in venture financing and expects to be profitable by this fall, Johnson said, explaining that the company keeps its overhead low by integrating with its manufacturing partners and allowing them to shoulder the burdens associated with marketing and inventory.
Johnson said Enjoy is flooded with qualified candidates for job openings, receiving about 100 online applications for every position opening in Dallas, for example.
“Finding people is the easiest part,” Johnson said. “We’re giving them a salary, benefits, stock, and complete freedom over when you work and how much you work. I think [complete freedom] is what employees deserve. You’ve got to change the way you do things to attract the best people.”
Johnson also touched on his ill-fated tenure at the helm of J.C. Penney, a two-year stint widely viewed as an unmitigated disaster and an experience he called “incredibly humbling.”
“If I hadn’t done that, I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing now," he said. "And I love what I’m doing now.”
