Comments on: Tired and beaten as we close out on a Friday

By: Brandon Nielsen

Brandon Nielsen — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:29:57 +0000

I’m not sure increasing the number of flagship stores is really the best way to increase the mindshare the various Nokia lines have in their respective markets.

Instead, more targeted advertising would likely have greater payoffs in the long run. For instance, I’ve been seeing quite of bit of Nokia product placement lately such as ExpressMusic devices in music videos and the fact the almost every phone related item in the movie Cloverfield was Nokia. But why stop there?

I remember being at a concert a while back sponsored by Helio (a former US phone company). The only way you could tell it was sponsored by them was it said so on the ticket and they had their name projected on the ceiling. Instead, imagine Nokia sponsored the show with their ExpressMusic brand and went further. Possibly an ‘Experience ExpressMusic’ kiosk out in the merchandise area where concertgoers could play with devices before the show starts.

You could do the same thing with E series devices at business conferences to reach out to the suits.

I’d have to imagine that focused advertising has the potential to sell more phones at a lower cost than flagship stores. After all, where Nokia seems to win the most customers in when potential customers fiddle with Nokia devices, so it makes sense to maximize the number of those interactions. Just a thought.

By: msav

msav — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:22:57 +0000

I’ve visited a Nokia Flagship store maybe twice. I do like the store windows and the campaigns because they show some extra effort. But the reason I don’t go to the store that often is because there’s really nothing much to see. And if you want, you can test all the phones on the market in the bigger home electronics stores and compare the prises.

I know that the Flagship stores are supposed to be places where customers can experience the Nokia phones and stuff. Maybe the problem is that there’s not really a clear picture in the public’s mind of what the experience is. What’s there to experience? The new phone model N-123? The video screens? The sofas?

I think the Nokia stores should try to offer more services, more competitive prises and become more approachable = more reasons for stopping by.

By: Ms. Jen

Ms. Jen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:09:03 +0000

Los Angeles – 13th largest metropolitan area in the world and no Nokia Store. None. No Nokia presence in a region with over 16 million folks, many of them quite wealthy.

Not only do we nice folk in SoCal need a Nokia store where we can go to touch & feel the latest Nokia, but also where we can purchase all the accessories for our current and past Nokia phones. Also, a repair center at the store would be beyond lovely, then I wouldn’t have to do DIY repairs to my N95 with my brother’s solder gun (now, it is fixed and I didn’t have to ship it to Europe for repair).

In the LA metro area the folks at Apple have 17 stores that sell & repair iPhones. There are at least 100 AT&T stores in the same region that sell iPhones. No one is selling Nokia Nseries devices to nearly 20 million folk with incomes that would qualify for the Nseries demographic. And when my N80 bricked during update last year, I could not find a single repair shop in all of the West Coast to help me.

Thus, Nokia Store plus Nokia Repair in one building in a location in SoCal = Win Win.

Really piss off NorCal Mr. Arrington by making SoCal a Nokia hot spot. NorCal folks love to think they are superior to SoCal…

;oD

By: Ricky Cadden

Ricky Cadden — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:34:50 +0000

Thanks for taking notice of my thoughts, Charlie. As you know, I’m always up for the conversation, should the opportunity arise. I believe the only thing that was good about the Experience Centers was the number of them throughout the country. While I understand that it’s no small potatoes opening up a retail store, specifically one in an area in which you haven’t any brand recognition, I can’t help but notice that, currently, Nokia’s ‘retail presence’ in the U.S. (and I frequent Best Buy, Fry’s, and the like, just to see) consists of two rather ’boutique’ stores in major cities, and the N95 8GB in stock at Best Buy Mobile locations.

Incidentally, the 3 Best Buys that I’ve seen the N95 8GB listed, it’s priced at $750, which is absurd for 2 reasons:

1. You can easily hop onto Amazon and pick it up for at least $100 less, if not more

2. It’s there next to the other phones that top out at ~$300-400 retail, not to mention the mess of contract-subsidized handsets.

In other words, it’s doomed before it’s even stocked.

Where are the N95-3s, or the N78s, or E71s? Nokia now has a total of 8 announced S60-powered smartphones with dual-band 3G (850/1900MHz) support for AT&T’s 3G network, at all ranges of price, and yet the only model listed at the United States’ largest electronics retailer is the one that’s a year old and still the most expensive? That just plain doesn’t make sense.