Sprint Nextel Corp. opened a new, flagship store in Kansas City’s Power and Light District in early March. The one-of-a-kind SprintStudio features many interactive elements and a heavy emphasis on customer service. The store is designed to be a testing ground for new retail elements for the carrier, with some components being rolled out to the rest of Sprint Nextel’s stores. Jeff Fisher, director of retail merchandising for the carrier, spoke to RCR Wireless News about trends at the fledgling location.
What are the most popular handsets?
Obviously we carry quite a few and it’s really what the customer is looking for, in terms of talking to the customer and really putting them in the appropriate device. From a text-messaging perspective, the LG Rumor is extremely popular right now. We’re also seeing that the Palm Centro, as well as the BlackBerry Pearl – that combination of pro-sumer attraction, attraction to consumers as well as business customers – are really very, very popular.
What accessories are people buying?
Bluetooth headsets are just doing extremely well for us. We really see that in the varieties of the Bluetooth headsets that we carry. It’s the number one accessory in the SprintStudio.
What plans are popular?
We’re getting just extremely good and positive response from the Simply Everything plan. The SprintStudio in part is just completely set up to really be able to deliver on what that plan offers. We’re really just seeing very, very positive take rates on that plan.
What data add-ons are customers interested in?
If they’re not interested in [Simply Everything], then that’s when we get into, as for the LG Rumor, our text messaging plan data attachment. It’s a phenomenal plan; that is second to the Simply Everything plan.
What trends do you expect to see in the rest of 2008?
We’re seeing just so much more interest [in data and applications] and customers are just embracing those more and more – so right alongside with that is just a wonderful trend toward the smart devices like the BlackBerry Pearl or the Centro, those smart devices which allow you to have access to e-mail on the go. Sprint Navigation is just a phenomenal application with people who start to use it and engage with it; and there’s incredible interest in the live search application from Microsoft which works so well on the new smart devices.
