Dell Opens Store in Dallas, TX

[werty316]

"... and the stores will carry no inventory."

Whats the point other than seeing how the actual products performs/runs?

"Uh yeah well sell Dell PCs but you can't actually buy any instore, uh, you have to order them through us, uh, sorry"


First Dell Direct store opens in Dallas, TX, another is planned for West Nyack, N.Y. later this year.

Dell opened its first Dell Direct store yesterday in Dallas, TX and another is planned to open in West Nyack, NY later this year. The stores are focused on increasing the company’s direct to home sales and the stores will carry no inventory.

Since no inventory is held at the facility, customers will order their machines in the Dell Direct store and the order will be shipped to their home once it has been processed by Dell. The stores objective is to give customers an opportunity to evaluate and gauge a specific system performance before making a purchase.

Dell has opened around 160 kiosks in recent years and will be studying the affect the Dell Direct store has on the kiosks in the surrounding areas of Dallas and West Nyack. This will allow the company to gauge if it will open additional store in the future, although none are currently planned.

Unlike Apple’s stores, it doesn’t sound like customers will be able to get support, training, service or repairs at Dell's retail locations and will still have to rely on phoning Dell support for those tasks.

Article Source: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3503

[tomato]

....this sounds like a "fluff" PR store, and nothing more... why wouldn't they carry any inventory... that makes no sense...

"Hi there, we're glad you like our computers, but you can't have one today, you have to order it through Dell. ...yes, we are a Dell Store, but we don't carry any actual stock" :(

[Kougar]

Well I can understand why though...

At best Dell could only stock a handful of their product line. When you buy a Dell you don't look at a shelf, point at a computer that is just like the one sitting behind it. They custom build the majority of dell computers, so they would only be able to carry some laptops and the most common setup type desktops... it's just not worth it to try and keep inventory because when someone wants one they will have to build it exactly as ordered.

[GIBSON]

Well I can understand why though...

At best Dell could only stock a handful of their product line. When you buy a Dell you don't look at a shelf, point at a computer that is just like the one sitting behind it. They custom build the majority of dell computers, so they would only be able to carry some laptops and the most common setup type desktops... it's just not worth it to try and keep inventory because when someone wants one they will have to build it exactly as ordered.
I completely agree with Kougar here. I do wonder why they have a store though. Maybe to give advice/info to people, but further than that it just seems like an unnecessary expense for dell which will be calculated into the prices for the end-users. Anyhow, I don't care, I wouldn't ever shop with dell :mrgreen:

[werty316]

"The stores objective is to give customers an opportunity to evaluate and gauge a specific system performance before making a purchase."

For LCDs its always best to see how it performs with your own eyes.

[Kougar]

They have it simply so people can see what they are buying before they actually buy it. Dell is simply testing exactly your point, whether they can increase sales or it is a wasted expense...

Such as Scott's shiney new 2407WFP LCD monitor... I'd much prefre to see it perform in person and play with it before I'd plunk down $700 for such a item!