“Dell Inc. will break its long boycott against retail sales with two stores at shopping malls later this year, but the company said it will remain true to its direct model by having shoppers order products online for delivery,” Dan Zehr reports for The American Statesman. “Dell will open the two stores, each about 3,000 square feet, at the NorthPark Center in Dallas and the Palisades Center in West Nyack, N.Y. The company planned to begin recruiting employees with ads today in local newspapers, said Jim Skelding, director of the pilot program.”
“The Dallas store will open in late summer, and the New York store will open in fall, Skelding said. Dell has dabbled in retail before. It ended an experiment with small outlets at a handful of Sears stores in 2003. The company has 161 kiosks at malls across the country, where customers can see a few products and place orders,” Zehr reports. “But Dell is feeling new heat from rivals, who have been able to capitalize on strong growth in consumer sales because they sell in stores.”
“The new stores are a step toward full-blown retail for a company that has previously said selling in stores is a money-losing strategy,” Zehr reports. “The stores also will sell Dell services, such as home network installation, he said. The company still is working out how to handle tech support questions that existing customers might bring to the store, a spokesman said. Workers at its kiosks put shoppers with service issues in touch with Dell’s existing customer-care staff… Apple Computer Inc. has been storming ahead in the consumer market. Like H-P and Gateway, it sells through retail chains, but much of its recent growth has come from its sleekly designed Apple stores. The company has 133 stores nationwide. The newest one, which opened Friday on Fifth Avenue in New York, will be open 24 hours a day… Each store averages about $20 million in sales per year, said George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in San Marcos, Calif. The stores account for about 17 percent of the company’s $13.9 billion revenue. Apple has stores in the two malls Dell is moving into and a 4,000-square-foot store at Barton Creek Square in Austin.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple now operates 147 stores, including six in Japan, six in the U.K. and two in Canada.
Zehr continues, “Although Dell’s new stores evoke some comparisons with Apple, they’re more similar to Gateway’s now-defunct chain of Gateway Country Stores. Gateway started out in retail much as Dell is starting now, using only online sales and carrying no inventory at its stores. It expanded beyond that during the holiday shopping season in 2000, when it put products in its outlets for the first time so last-minute shoppers could buy things cash-and-carry. At the time, Gateway had expanded to more than 320 stores nationwide, including one in Austin. But by the time it shuttered the entire chain in April 2004, the gap between it and Dell was as stark as the black and white of Gateway’s logo: Dell’s share of the U.S. personal computer market was 29.5 percent, while Gateway had 7.3 percent, according to IDC, which tracks technology sales. ‘The first thing everyone will say (about Dell) is, ‘It’s Gateway all over again,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Techworld. ‘Dell is not Gateway: It has a much bigger position in the marketplace and a much stronger brand name.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s Gateway all over again. Dell is Gateway. Gateway is Dell. They’re just box assemblers with a third-party operating system from Microsoft. They pay little attention to detail, little attention to design, little attention to the customer’s experience, but devote lots of attention to the bottom line. Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, etc. – name any one, they’re all the same – they’re not trying to innovate or lead or strive to deliver excellence to their customers. They don’t even make the operating system; turn any PC on and they’re all the same mediocre thing. The specific box assembler is virtually meaningless. They’re just assembling a mediocre commodity and trying to out-market each other. If you think that people who don’t work for Dell will line up for Dell store openings days in advance, you’re nuts. Forget about people flying in from Europe for the store; Dell will be lucky if they bother to walk over from the other end of the mall. We hope Dell wastes a crippling amount of capital on this venture. If Dell ceased to exist this afternoon, nobody outside of Dell and DELL shareholders would mourn or even notice. Just plug in the next Windows box assembler, no big deal. Some “choice,” by the way. There is only one true personal computer company left and then there are all the rest, making and marketing bland, inferior, upside-down and backwards Apple Mac knock-offs to a buying public that still don’t really understand what they’re buying.
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I can’t wait to see the juxtaposition of the two stores. Apple stores with elegant glass staircases and oak tables. Now imagine Dell stores with computers set up on unfolded card tables with prefab furniture littering the linolium floor. It’s retail on the cheap… Dell style.
I see Dell sales in the mall already. This isn’t anything new and why have a retail store in a mall if you’re not going to have the product available.
Dumb!
why do I have the feeling that no photos are going to be posted online of the lines forming outside of these new retail stores.
I just love to see Dull try and fail. It’s pure entertainment. A slow, pathetic death.
waitaminute. Am I reading that right? I go into a Dell store to buy something, and they make me order the thing online for a later delivery? I can’t even walk out with a computer?
lame lame lame.
Does anyone, for a minute, think a single celebrity would ever be caught in one of these Dell stores!? Not a chance.
YES! DELL stores I can’t wait!
YES! Put a DELL store in the same mall as an Apple Store. Great marketing for Apple. After five minutes in a DULL store they’ll be running to Apple. DELL, please, please, please, build a mountain of stores and go bankrupt.
Nothing like seeing the weakness of Dell showing it’s ugly colors. This is just another little highlight of Apple’s big comeback.
I go to the APPLE store in the Nyack Palisades often.
Hopefully, they’ll dump it in the sparse top floor, East Wing & not the Ground floor carpeted ‘deluxe’ section of the Mall.
It’s nice to see the words Dell and customer service in the same sentence
Hey MDN. How about innovating your website a bit? It is just above kindergarten in the design and usability stakes…
Dell recruiting ad:
Would you like to work in a store without merchandise? Every payday, are you tired of dealing with all that bothersome cash? Can you give the few stragglers that do come in directions to the nearest Apple store? Then we’re looking for you! (All positions temporary.)
“Dude, you’re summer help!”
http://www.modern-ruins.com/bronx/bronx.html
Oh who’s going to line up at the store opening. Just the employees.
They’ll be nowhere near successful. It was funny to see the Dell kiosk as empty as can be in the Lenox mall in Atlanta this weekend. They were literally less than 50 feet from the hustle and bustle and long lines of the Apple store. If that is any anecdotal indication of how the Dell stores will do, they might as well shutter them now.
Seriously though, people associate their headaches with Windows with the hardware as opposed to the software, so, most people will stay away from a Dell, Gateway, Sony, (insert PC maker here) store like the plague. These guys sell to corporations not individuals. They know not what they do. Apple is winning the hearts and minds of millions of consumers and that momentum will likely not change.
If I lived in Dallas I’d gladly wait outside for 42 hours until the doors opened.
Not.
This does not seem possible.
It is gateway all over again. Dell is just a big box assembler. They add no value as a reseller except that you can get everything from one place and it all looks kinda the same so your office looks nice.
But WHY would you go into the store and order a PC online? Because you need help configuring it? Please – phone reps can do that. Because you want to see the difference between a 17″ and 24″ monitor? You can go to Best Buy or order it and return it.
This is going to have a marginal impact on sales and a MASSIVE impact on operating losses!
The shelves of this store will no doubt be filled with nothing but anti-virus and firewall software.
For a laugh, check out the article’s link:
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/05/bkd_dell_sears.html
it is an image of a 2003 test Dell did selling PCs from inside of Sears. Chech the attention to detail with the wiring and the monitor stand that stickes out over the edges of the black base. Not to mention the four speakers that look like an alien obduction is occuring.
Hush Hush, Super Secret……VERY funny!!!
We’re opening the stores with a differenct philosophy than the Apple retail stores. They’re at snooty high-class malls and use amazing and expensive architecture.
We’re going to be more down-to-earth. And placement will be more appropriate for our clientelle. They’ll be placed next to Wal Marts and Dollar Stores. That way we’ll the the foot trafic for people who only care about price.
We may only make .02 percent on the dollar instead of 30 percent like apple, but while we lose a few bucks on each computer, we make up for it in volume!
MD
The latest MS Office malware-
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=16954&hed=Hackers+Target+Microsoft+Word§or=Industries&subsector=SecurityAndDefense
The mall near me is undergoing some heavy renovation and building (somehow, they’re adding a second story without keeping people out of the first for the most part). Anyway, the mall is at the moment a huge mess; stores changing around every week, different “road” blocks up, and such.
But one thing I noticed was that there’s a Dell kiosk at the end of the mall with no stores or anything. Nobody goes near it (there isn’t even a person to overlook the place!) and it just looks downright ugly- trying to look classy with is fake wood and metal, when it knows perfectly well that it blows and its only a matter of time before they get the boot because they’re dead weight. It’s a mess.
I hope Apple sees this mall as a possible store location when the mall is finished. It would also save me an hour to go to the next nearest store.
MW: Dell is shitty inside and out.
I cant imagine going into a store to order something I cant have for a week, which would arrive at my house anyways!? There is no point to these Dell/Dull outlets even existing. They don’t even need the brand recognition of having a store, sinse everyone knows who the comapny is – as the discount computer maker. It’s about as stupid as M$ opening their own stores. In Apple’s case, it makes sense to have a retail presence in the form of their own branded-stores.
I hope Apple’s market share grows hugely, as they well deserve it.
M$, on the other hand, seem like thieves.
Dell can open all the stores they want. I have a Dell laptop and desktop I don’t turnon, unless there is something I need to do for work, that only a Windows PC will do.
I have a 15″ G4 laptop and and 12″ G4 laptop (now handed down to my wife)… that we use 99% of the time. Soon to add an Intel Mac. Sales channels are note Dells problem. Dell is the problem. India based customer service, over priced PC’s, and no inovation – that is Dells problem.
A reconverted Mac user – flips the big bird to Dell.
Signs of desperation? I love it that after a non stop news weekend about Apple’s cube store, Dell decides to do a “me too” with this retail store business. Aboslutely not the kind of company I wan’t to buy from…
Is this a joke? What makes Dell believe it will have a different experience than Gateway. Apple has some amazing and unique products that people want to “touch and feel” in person. Apple creates an entertaining shopping experience to display those products. (And you can even pay for those products and walk out the door with your purchase, because it is a STORE, afterall.)
That’s why people line up at Apple Store openings; because they are events. I hope someone remembers these Dell Store openings, and posts pictures of the “crowd” in attendance. It should be about as exciting as a new Radio Shack opening.
Too funny to made up.
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Can’t you just see “Dell Pilgrims camping out overnight to be among the first to go into the new Hell retail Store?
Are they going to have a <b>”Moron Bar”</i>
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”raspberry” style=”border:0;” />
Why don’t they sell them at Walmart like all other crappy products? Seriously, Dell. When I read the title of the story I was ROFLMAO.
ATTENTION: MACDAILYNEWS — FIX THE DIV OR TABLE WIDTH FOR THE COMMENTS ON THIS PAGE.
Well Dell can take the store that Gateway had here in Indiana. It’s still empty. They even painted over the stupid cow patterns that made an ugly building even uglier. Its so bad even a fireworks store (empty retail buildings here often have a fireworks store in the spring and summer) has never opened there.
Sorry HTML police, I was laughing so damn hard, I screwed up.
Dell has a few of those kiosks right down the hall from Apple Stores in malls.
After coming from a busy Apple Store and then seeing those ugly cheap Dells sitting on those lame kiosks all by themselves, it’s obvious who is going to win the retail race.
Hush, hush, super secret: Why didn’t you just break up that ridiculous url with a
space – now I have to scroll clear across the page horizontally! Sure, sure… I know. Get a bigger monitor, etc.. blah, blah. But just know it’s annoying for those of us still relying on our 800 x 600 res. laptops. Please, just give it some thought next time…
Rasterbator,
I totally agree! Why do some pages fit in my web browser and others stretch for MILES, like this one?
You may see lines of workers trying to escape the stores mind
First Dell copied Apple’s industrial design (with not comparison of course), then they have the Dell DJ, now retail store? When are they going to stop copying Apple?
Dell Stores:
True to Windows the exits will say entrance.
At random spots in the store you’ll get stuck, become immobile and an employee will have to carry you outside so you can start your shopping again.
Several hundred dedicated employees wearing black cloth to enforce anonymity will follow you around and toss useless discount offers and unusable coupons in your shopping basket.
A pimply faced teen dressed as Merlin will appear at random to try to tell you your shopping is being done incorrectly and only he can show you the right way but it might take an hour or three.
Another dressed as a convoluted pieces of bent wire will try to confuse you with annoying aisle and shelf locations. He’ll ask you if you want him to go away and then he won’t.
Twenty to thirty employees will sneeze or cough on you. Guaranteed.
One employee will ask if you want them to stop sneezing on you. You agree. He’ll ask for your credit card first.
Your every move will be tracked by hidden cameras. All of the data will go many places. Round Rock, TX, Redmond, WA, Baghdad, Beijing, and East Nyack, NY.
You will not enjoy your shopping experience and no one will care.
While I can’t imagine Dell having much success with a store strategy, especially in two malls that already have Apple Stores; I think that people are being too harsh about the Dell kiosks. They seem to be nicely designed (as nice as they can be, considering that they show Dell computers!) and the employees appear to be interested in their work (what little of it there is).
I just don’t see any strategy, kiosk or store, that involves attempting to convince people to place an online order; instead of being able to walk away with their purchase. Dell is certain to hemorrhage money with this new venture.
And you’ll come down with a virus after you leave the store.
For some years there was this ‘pay now, collect later’ store chain in the UK called Time. Very like Dell in many ways (low price, just about good enough quality, poor support) except they had this high street presence. I bought a Windows PC from them once and had to return to collect it two weeks later. People won’t tolerate that these days. They want to pay now and walk out of the door with the product. Apple Stores have got it right; Time died an ignominious death some time ago.
Magic word: ‘bad’ – ‘it’s a bad model’
Excuse me sir, could I interest you in a dull grey box?
bobby Skinner: “Excuse me sir, could I interest you in a dull grey box?”
So, you’ve met my ex-wife? Good luck with that.
P.S. Good thing for me that my judgement in computers is better than my judgement in picking women. Victoria and Princess have never let me down.
Can’t wait till they open a DC/Baltimore store. That would be AWESOME! Long lunches, playing hooky from work, just to go look at all the super crazy cool stuff that you can’t see anywhere else….. except any Best Buy/Circuit City/Costco/Walmart/Sears…..
Everyone in the areas concerned should show up on opening day. When three salespersons descend on them, the lone customer, ask them for directions to the Apple store
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
now,
What was it Michael Dull once said about Apple .. and Steve Jobs ?
SERVICE:
A big issue Dell must deal with is service.
A. Dell supports Windows in the stores, becoming Redmond’s free support center, with 10 second support by saying over and over “Just re-install Windows, that will fix everything.”
or
B. Dell will support Windows in the stores, but only via a yearly fee-based support. If one chooses not to pay to play, go call Billy G.
C. Dell can refuse OS support entirely and offer no pay to play option.
Choose your path because either way it makes Apple’s vertical solution look fantastic from a consumer standpoint, because it is.
Apple makes a ton of money at it’s stores via iPod sales… Sony Style stores make their money of TV and stereo and speaker solutions, etc.. What is Dell going to sell in order to make a profit outside of selling cheap looking PC’s?… If you say “selling Dell Plasma TV’s” don’t count on it. It is again a commodity – all the same thing – purchase, which will be shopped and won’t provide the volume or margins to support massively expensive mall realestate.
Fear not Mac folk. Sony, Dell, Gateway, HP, they could all put in mall stores, and it will only incease Apple’s sales – not hurt them. These other vendors are all fighting for a happy Windoze-using gnomes (or sheep take your pick), wanting another Windows machine.
Meanwhile, people walking into an Apple Store are already Mac users, or are PC users looking to change over to some good ‘ol Mac goodness. Once onboard, few ever go back.
And after all “Buy a Dell, go to Hell? Why chance it, get a Mac.”
I wonder how many people will line up for the Dell Store’s Grand opening. lol
Macmania: “Moron Bar” That cracked me up, thanks!
Ampar: Your description of shopping in the new Dull store was hugely clever, very witty! I loved it!
MW: fear (surprising but true): as in Dull is being driven by fear.
Another belated case of monkey see, monkey do and I am sure they will muck it up anyway.
Dell Store: Inspired by Apple Store.
Soon we will be open a 24/7/365 store in NY.
Thanks, Bonkers! I’ve know to be bonkers too.
HEY! Did you hear? There might be a brand new Inspiron ! ! ! Me neither.
There will be one person camping out for the grand opening of the new Dell Store in West Nyack. His name is Herbert Montgomery Fremont III, age 57, on his third marriage, thinks vertical apps are neat, drives a Taurus because it was economical, once had an MP3 player but couldn’t get his Lawrence Welk collection loaded, and he will absolutely stay in line waiting for a brand spanking new Latitude because his mom is in Atlantic City for the WHOLE WEEK! Party on dude. Then he’ll discover he can’t take it home after buying it and return home sulking to his ample collection of Fortune magazines and Crossfire tapings.
ahh the Palisades Center?? I live 10 minutes from there, and there is an Apple store there too
dell sucks though.
Crap. So much for my proofreading skills. Oh well.
What’s the point of a Dell store?
The one person with a Dell DJ will go to the Dell DJ Bar to purchase a wide array of accessories and car integration kits? Oh. Nevermind, there are no accessories for the DJ.
While slurping down an Orange Julius someone decides they’re wanting to take home a new laptop, why not stop by the Dell store? Oh. Nevermind, they have no product in stock. Off to Best Buy to buy a WindowsXP bathroom scale.
Why wait in line to play with cutting edge computers and accessories, when there’s no lines at the Dell store to play with the same computer they endure using at work. Nothing is as much fun as reliving your workday in your free time, or playing a nice game of Freecell.
DELL SUCKS!
That is all.
Go back to whatever you were doing.
…so people cannot actually walk into a Dell store and walk out with a computer, like at an Apple store?
Didn’t Gateway already demonstrate what a crappy idea that is?
overheard at a Dell store coming near you:
I have this here winders me machine and she keeps popping up these here porn-o sites. i caint seem ta getter to download ahye-tunes! kin ya help me? what’s that… buy a new computer? You kiddin me? this here machine’s been great, i don’t need no upgrade! my brother’s a programmer…
mdn word: “love”… awww
Hey, Mike,
I live about 10 minutes from the Northpark Center in Dallas – let’s go stand outside the stores and laugh!
I’m guessing they’ll be as far on the opposite side of each mall as possible, so people won’t be tempted into the Apple store just around the corner.
I went to a mall in San Antonio that had an Apple Store and a Sony Store. The Apple Store was packed wall to wall with people and the Sony Store was practically empty.
I agree with the poster who said it’ll be interesting to see the juxtaposition of the two stores.
Oh Goodie! Now all the Dell users can get bad service face to face. If you’re a repeat Dell customer you might as well have masochist stamped on your forehead
I have to verify that tanks experience in San Antonio is not an isolated incident. I was recently in a mall in St. Louis. The Apple store was busy, I went into the Sony store and I was the ONLY customer, a couple of the employees looked at me like “what are you doing here?”. I’m sure the Dell stores will not be unlike the sad little displays they have in the malls, only bigger.
My loathing of all things Dell is only because I’ve experienced more than one of their machines first hand and suffered through their customer service for 3 years, never again..EVER.
rasterbator,
I had the same problem in Camino. I just reloaded and it fixed the problem.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the big strategy is to style the stores similar to Apple stores, so people might “accidentally” wander in looking for iPods. Maybe they’re going for the confused shopper segment that thinks all digital music players are “iPods”.
There have been Sony stores in Canada for years. They aren’t exactly owned by Sony but they are heavily regulated by Sony.
Their biggest selling products are Sony TV’s, movie cameras and Component Stereos.
They carry a few Sony computer products but the salespeople haven’t got a clue about computers. They keep the computers in locked display cases where potential buyers can’t even touch them.
Funniest thing of all, when you want to check out the newest Vaio in a Sony store, the clerks try to steer you over to the nearest Stereo or HDTV.
ampar, loving your humor, but I graduated from HS in 1970, and grew up on rock and roll, so in your character description of the Lawrence Welk listening dude, you’re really speaking of my Dad’s generation – he’s 80, not anywhere near 57… other than little airball on generations, you might have a future in comedy… just keep practicing, and maybe research just a bit…
Oh, and thanx MDN for finally removing that format offending post.
The Bottom Line?
Dell will succeed, by its own failure, to show just how different Apple really is…
A bit cranky are we? I’ll work on the math. Thanks!
(I once had a cassette tape of Don Ho’s greatest hits. A real crowd pleaser!)
I hope they don’t count on making money with these stores !
A little late, aren’t we……the bandwagon left years ago
“Does anyone, for a minute, think a single celebrity would ever be caught in one of these Dell stores!? Not a chance.”
I would ! No one else wants me.
since someone upthread used the words Dell and porno in the same sentence it seems appropriate to throw this link out there (SFW)
porno
I noticed an ABC logo in the corner of that clip…was that actually from one of those lame “tv’s greatest bloopers” shows they put on on saturday nights sometimes? I don’t believe QVC has live audiences. Who would show up for a taping?
“Does anyone, for a minute, think a single celebrity would ever be caught in one of these Dell stores!?”
Carrot Top, the stoned Dell Dude, and the entire cast of every season of The Surreal Life.
I would love to see a Dell store, side by side, with an Apple store.
Now, I’m wondering, do you think they’ll have free repairs and a service counter bar?