Intel Partners with Best Buy On Local Pop-Up Stores With Community Flavor

Best Buy is Intel’s retail partner for the Intel Experience pop-up stores launching in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles this week, Intel Channel Development General Manager Sean Ludick told Consumer Electronics Daily on a walkthrough of the first store to open in New York’s Nolita neighborhood. Consumers can’t buy directly from the store and take products home, but they can buy products through a dedicated Best Buy landing page and have products shipped from there. The goal of the store is not to generate retail sales but to give consumers a chance to interact with the latest Intel-based devices, Ludick said.

Intel is playing catchup in the mobile market at the same time it’s trying to advance the PC category with its latest PC processors that offer more power and longer battery life. In what has been billed as the season of the tablet and the next series of videogame platforms, the stores give the company a chance to grow mindshare for Intel-powered devices including convertibles and PCs whose sales have been impacted over the past year by the success of tablets and smartphones, he said. An aisle in the Nolita store is dedicated to 2-in-1 convertibles, a novel concept still for many consumers, and staffers are on hand to explain the benefits of Intel technology in general. In addition to the aisles of demo PCs and some tablets, there’s an area with two small picnic-style tables and benches designed to be a spot where young kids can do homework, Ludick said.

A goal of the store is to let consumers “try before they buy,” both inside and outside the store, Ludick said. Intel is offering loaner programs for select products to let consumers live with a device for 24 hours so they explore the features and feel, Ludick said. As of Tuesday when we toured the store, no one had opted into the loaner program, likely due to the $500 credit card hold required to test-drive a device, our Intel guide, Darric, told us.

Four days into its run, the store had rung up roughly 50 transactions via the Best Buy terminals, Darric told us. Darric was friendly and eager to provide a product tour explaining features of the devices, particularly the Turbo Boost feature that allows a computer to kick into overdrive when processing power is needed for gaming or video and then settle back into a more power-efficient state for less taxing operations. Staffers at the pop-up stores are employed by Intel and don’t make a commission on any sales in store, he told us. The job is seasonal for Darric, who was selected out of a group of 800 competing for the jobs, which will carry through the store’s run through Jan. 25. Darric had no retail or sales experience, but he had background building and servicing computers, he said. He liked interacting with consumers, he said, and was “not your average nerd."

On how Intel is generating store traffic, located in a trendy but not highly traveled location on Mott Street in New York, Ludick told us it’s reaching consumers via social media, radio spots and old-fashioned grassroots efforts. Teams wearing Intel gear hit the streets Sunday and lured teens and young adults from areas around the nearby Broadway-Lafayette subway station with the promise of snacks, big-screen football and prizes. One giveaway was a sweatshirt with Intel on the back and “I love Nolita” on the front. Community relations is a key part of the program, Ludick said. Intel has partnered with 15 local businesses in the neighborhood including coffee shops and restaurants. The company hopes to generate loyalty through repeat visits, he said.

The store goes through a transformation over the course of the day, Ludick said. In the morning, it’s set up as a coffee shop where people walking by are urged to come in for a free cup of joe. A larger section of the store opens midday and staffers are on hand to walk consumers through three aisles of tablets, PCs and 2-in-1 convertible PCs. Products will rotate, he said. At night, the back of the store, which features nine video monitors set up as a large video wall, shows entertainment including movies and sports events. Sunday and Monday Night Football games have been the biggest draw, Darric said. Saturday night the store served free wings, and Sunday was pizza night, he said. Tuesday was expected to be a game night, though staffers hadn’t made the final call when we left. The store is equipped to hold competitive games over Wi-Di, Ludick said.

The day after Thanksgiving, the store is holding “Blue Friday” instead of Black Friday and plans to offer promotions and deals but not in a competitive way, Ludick said. Rather than participating in the frenzied spirit of Black Friday, Intel hopes to offer a place where people can “come in and relax,” he said.

On Tuesday, we saw a range of laptops and tablets from manufacturers including Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Sony. The highest priced models in the store were $1,200 models from Sony and Samsung. Most of the 10 people in store were Intel employees, with three consumers looking over products. Sharp LCD monitors line the walls and are used for Intel messaging, Darric said. One monitor rolled a spiel on Ultrabooks.

As part of the community effort, the store is also accepting small electronics for recycling. For each product brought in, the store will donate $5 to a local school up to a maximum of $20,000, Ludick said. He wouldn’t say whether the three stores in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are test runs for a broader demo store concept, but said Intel has no plans to go into the retail business.

Part of the program is an inventor contest, in which Intel is encouraging local “technology inventor hopefuls and makers” to participate in a challenge that “gives back to their local community.” At the end of the competition, the winner will receive a prize, which could be a scholarship, Ludick said. Full details about the competition will be announced “in a few weeks,” he said.