Dell is opening its first retail store this summer as the kick off to a pilot program that will bring more stores by yearend, according to news reports.
The first store will open this summer in NorthPark Center in Dallas. The second will open in the Palisades Center in West Nyack, NY, this fall. Each store will be about 3,000 square-foot in size, news reports said.
The stores won’t stock items for sale, but instead will allow customers to order displayed products, according to The Austin-American Statesman. The Round Rock, TX-based company prefers that consumers “touch and feel the products” Jim Skelding, director of the pilot program told The Austin-American Statesman.
The company is still fine tuning the details, but so far the new stores will carry computers targeted to children and will have a home-theater style design set up around a computer. Dell operates 161 kiosks at malls across the United States, which allows consumers to view products and make orders, according to reports.
Dell may be following the lead of Apple Computers Inc., which operates 147 stores, including six in Japan, six in the U.K. and two in Canada. More than 147 million people on three continents have visited Apple retail stores since they opened in May 2001. Apple’s Retail division generated more than $1 billion dollars in revenue during the 2005 holiday shopping season, solidifying Apple’s position as one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world.
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