The 3,000 sq ft store is three times the size of an average Carphone Warehouse and has 35 per cent of its space devoted to products in new categories. The store has brought together elements trialled earlier this year in four stores in Birmingham.
If successful, between 50 and 70 of the stores could open across Europe by the end of next year, if the conditions are right, according to a spokesman.
Carphone Warehouse new business and multichannel director Andrew Brem said the Westfield store is “about range and not about a change in aesthetics”.
Four more stores are to open this month, featuring space devoted to gaming, computers and connectivity products that link hardware. The stores will open alongside the retailer’s 30,000 sq ft Best Buy stores, which are due to debut next year.
Carphone Warehouse has followed a strategy of launching devices outside of its core mobile phone range, beginning from early this year with subsidised laptops for customers taking up its broadband offers. Brem said the retailer had expanded the initiative to offer free games consoles or LCD TVs with various media packages.
“Our raison d’etre is to solve customers’ communications problems and then they get a device free,” he said.
“The laptop is still a centre point, but there is an opportunity to massively extend that into new categories,” said Brem.
The store features an area devoted to the retailer’s Geek Squad advice team, which has been effective in securing sales and reducing returns, and could roll-out to key stores.
But Carphone Warehouse will be “predominantly focused on laptops and phones”, said Brem.
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