What would you do if you went to a flower store that didn't let you take any flowers home with you, but made you order the flowers online? Why would you even go to the store in the first place? This is exactly what Dell is doing.
The plans are to open up a retail store for users to see their products, but not buy them. Employees will instruct users to place their order online and it will be shipped to them as if they placed the order at home. Makes sense? Not really.
Why? Find out after the jump.
Dell's been the leader of personal computer sales in the US due to their lack of a middleman. You go online, order a Dell, and it gets shipped to you without going through a Best Buy or a Fry's to tack on extra charges. The result, lower prices for you and more sales for Dell.
Trying to desperately hold on to this online-only mentality when opening their own retail store is silly. Will a user go to a store just to feel out a Dell machine, only to have to place an online order anyway? We doubt it. One machine feels the same as the next, and Dell isn't known for its eye-catching designs anyway.
The genius of Apple retail stores is that you can actually walk in there and come out with a shiny matted new MacBook.
Dell plans to open first store in Dallas [Star-Telegram]