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Verizon’s Destination Stores aim to change the wireless retail experience for the better

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Verizon Wireless today announced a new initiative for the wireless retail industry. They’re calling it the Destination Store, which is a fancy name for “tricked out store where we show you cool stuff so we can try and sell it to you.” The company showed the first of these stores off in a live stream event on their website today. So what, exactly, will this store be doing to help make the retail experience better for you?

For starters, they want to make it more than just a wall of dummy units and demo phones. They want the store to be vibrant, big, and full of different devices that will help you in your everyday life. No longer is it just about phones and tablets — it’s about everything. Treadmills, safety tools, music accessories and more will all be flaunted in this retail space.

verizon-destination-store-1

Verizon will section off different parts of these stores and dedicate them to specific things. The Sound Zone, for instance, will house all the wireless speakers and headphones you could ever need. And all of these products will be unboxed, turned on and ready for you to play with, because no one should have to decide on buying something without being able to try it out.

What’s more is that Verizon is looking to provide interactive information displays, giving users more information about the products they’re looking at in a modern, more approachable way. Beyond all that, Verizon will look to entice you even after the sale, as they will use these Destination Stores to host training workshops that are designed to help people learn how to use their new products.

Most interesting to us is the new “integrated” checkout experience the company is touting. They want you to be able to carry your online shopping cart with you into a Verizon store, so when you walk in the customer service rep will already know exactly what you’re looking for. They’ll drive that home by emphasizing pick-up in-store options, same day delivery (in four cities to start) and more.

Verizon isn’t doing much more than any big box retailer store has been, but that’s just it — wireless carriers aren’t expected to provide that same level of retail experience. Verizon has made it their mission to do so. It’ll be interesting to see just how much this influences the other guys in the future.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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16 Comments

  1. Idk about other states, but here in TX AT&T has been doing stuff like this….so nothing new to me…but nice to see other carriers starting to follow suit to show off tech and not just force certain things to customers.

  2. Yeah, AT&T has these “experience” stores all over the country.

  3. I would much prefer they utilize this space with a larger phone selection (and not 6 months after they are released on other carriers)

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  4. Fancy story is no good if you have uninformed staff. Went to a local outlet looking for a secure SIM for ISIS and they had no idea what I was talking about. Eventually I just had them replace my SIM hoping all new ones were secure and it worked.

    1. I think a lot of it depends on local management. I had the exact same issue. I went in there and they knew exactly what the issue was. Walked out 5 minutes later using ISIS.

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  6. I’ve been in one of these stores for a few months (one of the test ones). We actually employees dedicated to customer experience and tech knowledge (take a guess what I do). The customer experience is typically much much better, at least as far as our feedback has been.

    1. That’s nothing new, Sprint been define it for couple Years new ( The customer tech knowledge).

  7. Good luck!

  8. I was just at the Mall now, I took some pics and recorded a video. There were executives at the prelaunch invite only. Too bad I couldn’t enter. Tomorrow Selena Gomez will be here and I will again record the actual public launch tomorrow. The Verizon wireless employee told me celebrities will be arriving throughout the week. Here is a video I recorded and a pic of the grand opening specials going on
    http://techlivewire.com/3306/verizon-wireless-opens-mega-store-at-mall-of-america.html

  9. Finally!! Now I’m gonna buy all the stuff!

  10. Hope they tell their employees to ditch the suits. Maybe they’ll then spend some of the time not wasted pressing shirts, pants and deciding which tie to wear on educating themselves about their industry.

  11. @talkingmoose…
    Yea, unfortunately the majority of the staff are not techies like us. I work at a VZW retail store. In the stores we just refer to them as NFC sims. If the sim card they gave you is white on top, you’re good to go. If they have you a red one, go back and tell them you need an NFC sim. Then they’ll definitely know what you’re talking about. I apologize on behalf of some of my not-as-informed colleagues.

  12. @major_pita…
    Lol! I work in one of the New Store Designs. Believe me, nobody was as excited as the employees to be able to now wear polo shirts and sneakers to work! Unfortunately, however, that doesn’t translate to my coworkers spending any extra time on tech sites! Lol! It all depends who you get though. In my location we have 9 sales reps, and only two of us are tech fanatics. We’re the ones all our coworkers go to with questions about specs and features on phones and stuff (even the mgrs). :-/

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