More in store
Telco giant Orange has unveiled a new retail strategy in the form of two new retail formats and the launch of a franchise strategy.
The first ‘Community Store' opened in Monmouth, Wales yesterday. This seems to be a slightly insidious attempt to integrate Orange into the local community by encouraging people to come into the shop, have a coffee, and just hang-out and chat about phones and stuff. There will even be a kitchen and ‘community workshops'.
Staff will be trained and incentivised to help as much as sell, and there will even be some trained to be ‘ambassadors' and will go to schools and teach kids about the safe use of technology.
The first ‘Multimedia Store' will be opened in Milton Keynes in September. The aim seems to be to showcase Orange's multimedia offering, whatever that it, and will have loads of TV screen to do just that.
Orange has also announced that start of a franchise scheme, which it expects to yield ten stores by the end of the year and concessions in branches of media retailer HMV.
"By trialling different store formats we aim to identify the best and most successful ways of serving the personal requirements of our diverse customer base and not deliver a one size fits all approach to our customers," said Sian Doyle, head of retail at Orange UK.
There don't seem to be any images of these new stores yet, but here's one of a relatively new store in London's Westfield mega-mall.
