Cingular unveils interactive stores

Cingular Wireless will open three new concept stores in the next month where customers will be able to try various products and services before they buy them.

The stores--scheduled for Atlanta, Dallas and Trussville, Ala.--will feature the “Live Bar,” a café-style area where customers will be able to download ring tones to their phones, use one of Cingular’s latest handsets to access the Internet, and send text messages to another phone.

The idea is to let customers custom-build a plan, features and accessories that meet their individual needs and personality, said Bob Shaner, Cingular’s president of wireless operations, in a statement.

“One size does not fit all … what better way to be sure your wireless services fit you and your lifestyle than by customizing your phone and services by trying them first?” he said.

The strategy makes sense, given how much is riding on the success of next-generation wireless data services, said Bryan Prohm, senior analyst for Gartner Dataquest.

“It behooves these guys to be aggressive in the way that they bring new services to market, and particularly in the way that they … make their user base and prospective user base aware of what they are, how to use them, and how easy—in some cases—it is to use them,” he said. “That’s the kind of push-pull tactics that will make an end-user find wireless data more palatable.”

Cingular is catching up to a strategy that other retailers have used successfully for several years, Prohm said.

“It’s analogous to a general trend throughout the whole retail industry, where you have mobile gaming units in a Best Buy or listening stations in a Blockbuster Music,” he said. “The more they can make it seem like a run-of-the mill consumer electronics product, the better. They need to remove the ‘fear-of-the-unknown’ factor.”

The Live Bar eventually will be a component of all Cingular retail outlets. The company plans to redesign 90% of its stores with the new concept by the end of this year.