Apple Store is a totally different shebang, if those are not owned by Apple it would be a major news story for lots of people.
And if they are owned by apple I don't see why their employees can not see bug reports.
The last time I dared to request a troubleshooting for the terrible lockups (sometimes down to the touchpad click not responding directly) that I now believe are caused by swapping (and are present on every ARM Mac I've used), I was offered by the official Apple website to make an appointment at Gravis, an authorized reseller and then perhaps also authorized repair provider.
But Apple Store I think is owned by Apple and people there actually work at Apple. Also if Apple Store was the same franchise thing as authorized resellers then I don't see why there would be so few Apple Stores around the world.
Also wow. I didn't have this particular touchpad issue with my M1 mac yet. I do have a bunch of gripes with Apple about other issues though. Just a couple days ago noticed notification center was using 100% CPU and draining battery. Only because I wanted to check time in another timezone using world clock widget. Trying to edit the widget and select a different city locked up the entire thing with all the other widgets. Dumpster fire.
Even if what happens is that they are just a favoured franchise.