Samsung has joined the ranks of Apple and Sony with its own premium retail space, opening today in Sydney’s George Street, just one block away from the Apple Store and at a time when the two companies are battling over patents in courts around the world.
Samsung’s Experience Store is designed to showcase the company’s range of mobile, tablet, audio-visual devices and accessories, and demonstrate to customers how Samsung devices can work together to share content such as music, video and photographs. The store opening also saw the debut of the company’s new tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1 (pictured above), which provides side-by-side multi-tasking, a 6.5mm S-Pen, 2GB RAM and a 1.4GHz quad core processor.
While all of the products on display can be purchased, Samsung is focusing on educating customers about their ‘convergence story’ rather than competing with electronics retailers such as JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman who already stock Samsung products, and offer discounts.
The Samsung Experience Store also features a dedicated service desk offering access to “Samsung Smart Tutors”. Smart Tutors may also host specialised sessions with Samsung products so customers can ask questions and learn about the full capabilities of a product before buying.
Samsung’s operating partners including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, and all have a presence in the store so customers can compare mobile and data pricing across providers.
From today and across the launch weekend, Samsung will have a number of instore activities, along with the opportunity for customers to win prizes. Activities include:
Caricature artist (Thurs, 23 Aug: 4-8pm, Sat 25 Aug: 11-3pm): Customers are able to have their portrait drawn by a professional artist on the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, and then take the image home on a printed magnet.
Funny photo competition (Fri 24 Aug: 4-8pm, Sun 26 Aug: 11-3pm): Customers can put their creative skills to work and take pictures with props and a Samsung GALAXY S III with and have the „best shot‟ printed for customers to take home.
Samsung’s Experience Store is located at 450 George Street (next to Myer City) and is open from 8am today (23 August, 2012).
