Andrew LaVallee

Many Apple retail stores are madhouses on ordinary weekends, so it’s no surprise they were crowded on Black Friday. But according to analysts, some of whom are studying the company’s holiday traffic for the first time, Apple’s performance is worth paying attention to.

According to Piper Jaffray, Apple stores exert “what can best be described as a gravitational pull” on mall shoppers. A shopper walking within 25 feet of an entrance has a 27% chance of going in, said analyst Gene Munster, whose firm spent six hours monitoring foot traffic at Apple stores this weekend. Most of them don’t buy anything, he added, and Apple stores are often in high-traffic parts of shopping centers, but this signals a possible shift in buying intentions to Macs from PCs.

Read Holiday Sales Blog: Do Apple Stores Exert ‘Gravitational Pull’?

Amazon.com Inc.’s new e-book reader, Kindle, has only been on sale for a few hours, but the blogosphere already has a lot to say about it.

Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo are buzzing about the device’s free wireless capability and odd design. Media and publishing bloggers, some responding to Newsweek’s nearly 5,000-word advance look, are discussing what Kindle means for the e-books industry and reading itself. Other tech bloggers are hashing out its price tag ($399) and the notion of having to pay for blog feeds.

And everyone has an opinion, mostly negative, about how it looks. A sample description: “like a prop from an old sci-fi horror flick.”

Amazon customers have weighed in, too, with more than 100 reviews already online. Kindle, so far, is rated 2.5 stars out of 5.

Read Bloggers React to Amazon’s ‘Ugly Duckling’

When Jeff Keller ordered a Windows Vista upgrade and a wireless-Internet adapter on CircuitCity.com, he expected to save some time, as well as shipping fees, by picking them up at a store near his Oakland, Calif., home.

First came the call that the adapter was out of stock. Then, when he drove to the Circuit City store, he was told that the Vista order had been mistakenly canceled. He waited 20 minutes while a warehouse clerk found another copy of the Microsoft operating system.

Mr. Keller, 30 years old, turned to Best Buy’s Web site to order the missing wireless adapter, again choosing the “buy online, pick up in store” option. He encountered another setback when he arrived at the Best Buy store: His item was in stock but hadn’t been set aside. He waited while a staffer located the product in an aisle and walked it back to the cash register. The whole transaction took about 15 minutes, he said.

“What’s the point of in-store pickup if they don’t have the product ready to go when you arrive?” Mr. Keller asked. “Lesson learned: It’s faster to just pull it off the shelf yourself.”

Retailers are increasingly touting features that let customers order items online, and then pick them up at nearby physical stores. Consumers are offered the ability to save on shipping charges and get orders faster, and retailers find it can boost store sales. Many stores advertise that items will be available for pickup soon after the order is placed, while others take days to transfer online-only items to stores from warehouses.

But as in-store pickup has grown in popularity — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Company Inc., Lowe’s Cos. and Payless ShoeSource Inc. have joined the ranks of retailers offering the service — complaints are mounting over faulty Web information and slow service. And some analysts are cautioning retailers that the process is trickier than it looks.

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