Dell holds nose and tries retail
PrintDallas and New York get shops
Posted in IT Channel, 24th May 2006 09:17 GMT
Free whitepaper – What Exchange can't do - and Dell can
Dell, famous for sticking to its direct sales business model, is opening two stores in the US but stresses it is just an experiment.
The stores will not carry inventory - orders will still go through Dell's website and existing fullfilment process. The two shops, with about 3,000 square feet of space, will carry about 36 products including big screen TVs.
Although primarily a direct seller Dell has tried retail sales before - late last year it did a deal with US warehouse giant Costco to offer cheap desktop machines off the shelf. Since 2002, the company has run kiosks in shopping malls and department stores to let shoppers try before they buy. These also have no inventory but can help customers through ordering online.
IDC PC sales figures for the most recent quarter showed Dell's growth slowing to less than one per cent in the US, but it is still in top spot.
But Dell will be up against some competition - both the malls chosen already have Apple stores.
Free whitepaper – Managing desktop software for fun and profit
The Cloud threat Landscape
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
Enhancing retail operations with unified communications
Seven ways to optimize VMware server virtualization
Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter
Microsoft's Windows 7 price gamble - and why it's flawed
Managing Desktop Software for fun and profit
Intel's flash new SSDs hit by bugs