Samsung's Experience Store opens its doors in Sydney
- — 23 August, 2012 09:29
The Samsung Galaxy S III cake at the new Experience Store in Sydney last night.
Samsung has officially opened the doors to its first official retail store in Australia today, located in the heart of Sydney's CBD.
The strategically titled Samsung Experience Store opened for the first time at 8am this morning. The new retail store is located at 450 George St, Sydney, a stone's throw away from Apple's largest Australian retail store which is located just down the road at 367 George Street, Sydney.
The Experience Store was previewed by Samsung to members of the Australian media last night at an event hosted by Samsung's Vice President of Telecommunications in Australia, Tyler McGee. McGee said the Experience Store was developed primarily for Australians to explore and interact with Samsung devices.
"One thing we learnt with the Galaxy S III experience is when Australians touch feel and use our devices they fall in love," said McGee. "This is why the Samsung Experience Store was developed. It allows Australian consumers to explore and experience to discover what our devices can do."
McGee said a real focus of the Experience Store is about how Samsung's devices interact with each other, so the prominent products available are wireless devices like smartphones, tablets, notebooks, smart TV's and wireless cameras.
Samsung's Experience Store will sell smartphones and tablets through Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.
"The key word is experience," said McGee. "What we've done in this store is focus on how you can actually interact between our devices. So what we have here are obviously smartphones, we have our tablet range, but we also have our smart TV and smart cameras, along with our IT devices. It's all about how those devices work together, so consumers can come in here and experience that and learn how to use those devices together," he explained.
The most prominent products on display in the store include the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note smartphones, along with the Samsung Series 9 notebook, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 tablet and the newly announced Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet and Galaxy Beam smartphone. Samsung will also sell its WB150F Wi-Fi enabled smart camera, along with a selected range of smart TVs.
The Samsung Experience Store also has a dedicated "App Zone" which gives customers the opportunity to look at apps that have been developed for Australia, while a "Play Zone" has a lower level table designed for entertaining children with specialist child apps and games. A range of Samsung and third party accessories are sold in the store.
Notebooks, smart cameras and smart TV's will also be sold at the Experience Store.
In addition to selling products outright, Australian consumers can purchase smartphones and tablets through the three main carriers in Australia.
"We have partnered with all the key operators in Australia, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone," said McGee. "So customers will be able to purchase in store through any of those operators, as well as outright if that is their preferred option."
Last month, Samsung opened a similar retail store in Vancouver, Canada, which was the first of its kind in North America. However, the company says it has no plans at this stage for further retail stores in Australia.
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