Expansive customer experience
At the special Samsung-shops customers can not
only get demonstrations and extra information, they can also get small repairs
done or have their devices activated and set up as they please.
The shops will have Samsung specialists as well
as especially trained Best Buy-employees. “Although the carriers and
retailers today provide a solid retail experience for our consumers, what we
find is a lot of deeper questions just aren’t answered”, says Ketrina
Dunagan, vice-president of retail marketing at Samsung Telecommunications
America.
In the wake of Apple
The first shop-in-shop will appear in Dallas, a
stone’s throw away from the American headquarters of Samsung. By the start of
May the 500 largest Best Buy-shops in the United States and all Best Buy
Mobile locations should have their own Experience Shops. Another 550 stores
will follow by the start of June.
This new project by the Koreans seems to be a move to counter the retail activities of Apple, which has 400 stores
but also 740 mini-stores at that same Best Buy. Samsung emphasises however that the
Experience Stores are also used to differentiate from other Android devices and
to draw in all the attention.
The choice to go with shop-in-shops and to not
create a network of its own shops comes as no surprise: the Koreans only need one night to set up a Samsung Experience Shop at Best buy, while a complete
physical store would take months. The investments are also a lot smaller.
