Thursday, September 25, 2008

DELL WANTS TO SELL EMERGING CONSUMERS THEIR 1ST PC

London
Financial Chronicle

Dell hopes its new retail drive to sell in stores rather than just online will help it sell to consumers in emerging markets buying their first computer, Chief Executive Michael Dell said on Tuesday.

Dell, the world's second-biggest computer maker, has recently switched from a pure online and phone sales model to build an expanding network of retail stores, putting its PCs and laptops within the reach of consumers without Internet access.

Asked at an emerging markets conference organised by the Economist whether he aimed to sell consumers in emerging markets their second computer, once they were already online, he replied: "With 15,000 stores, we want to sell all the PCs."

Dell outlined a sales method he dubbed dell.com@retail, in which store staff, for example in India, take customers through an assisted sale on dell.com, combining a personal shopping experience with the advantages of having no store inventory.

The company said last week that slow demand had spread from the United States to Europe and Asia, and had not rebounded as expected after the summer lull.

Pim Dale, who heads Dell's operations in European, Middle Eastern and African emerging markets including Russia, said demand in Russia was "robust" although it was too early to judge the fallout from last week's banking sector meltdown.

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