September 2007 - Posts

• Dell Retail Expansion in China

  Mon. Sep. 24, 2007
  by Michael Tatelman, VP—Consumer Sales & Mktg.

  Today in Beijing, we announced a partnership with Gome, the largest consumer electronics retailer in China, to sell Dell products in local Gome stores. This marks the first time Dell has sold systems in retail in China since we entered this market in 1998.

  Starting in October, customers will be able to buy notebooks like the the XPS M1330 and the Inspiron 1420, and desktops like the XPS 720, Dimension 9200 and the Inspiron 530, at more than 50 major metropolitan Gome stores. Additional Gome stores will carry Dell products in the coming months. Dell employees will be on site in Gome stores to help customers with their purchases and provide tech support.

  Many of you may not be aware, but I lived in this area of the world for almost 3 years and appreciate the increasing sophistication of Chinese customers in how they buy and use technology. Since Dell opened its first Customer Experience Center (CEC) in China last year, customers have shown us how much they value seeing our products in person. That success has led us to establish nine CECs throughout China within one year. These experience centers continue to provide insights into the affinity of Chinese customers for a convenient shopping experience, and helped pave the way for us to enter into retail in China.

  Because of the size of Gome's presence in cities of all sizes, most Chinese customers are probably familiar with Gome. This partnership will help us extend beyond our online and phone direct business model to connect with a broader set of customers.

  Does this mean the end of traditional direct in China? No, it does not. All of our recent retail activities are meant to augment direct sales. Dell has built our business on the foundation of direct customer interaction, and that will not change. This is about reaching more customers in China. 

  Not long ago, we announced retail agreements in the U.K., U.S. and Japan. The partnership with Gome in China is an important extension of Dell's global retail strategy. We will continue to grow and develop this strategy based on needs of customers around the world.

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• Dell to Open Retail Store in Russia

  Wed. Sep. 19, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Michael Dell took part in a media briefing in Moscow today to discuss Dell's plans to open a retail store in the new Gorbuskin Dvor retail center. The store will open next month and will offer notebooks, desktops, servers, printers and more. This is part of additional investments that we'll be making in Russia, which is one of the fastest-growing computer markets in the world.

  Customers will be able to see demonstrations of products and talk to experts about what products make sense for home use or what's required to run a small business. Besides hardware, the store will also offer a service outlet to provide hardware warranty repairs for Dell equipment. While we already sell our systems alongside competitors' products in other Moscow retail locations, this is the first store in Moscow that will sell Dell products exclusively.

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• Simplifying Recycling for Small Businesses

  Wed. Sep. 19, 2007
  by Joe Strathmann, Sr. Mgr.—Asset Recovery Services

  Today, we're introducing a way for small business customers to recycle unwanted computer equipment.

  Customers in the United States with fewer than 10 pieces of computer equipment can contact their sales representative to request a personal asset recovery number for our new Web-based service. Upon completion of the process, we provide a report of how the system's data was cleansed and how the system was recycled. Customers have the option of ordering enhanced packaging and can monitor the status of their equipment during the shipping process. This StudioDell video provides a good overview of how the process works. This PDF does too.

  Why single out small businesses? A recent IDC survey commissioned by Dell found that small companies are far less likely to use IT disposal services compared with medium- and large-size companies. An estimated 11 percent of companies with fewer than 100 employees intend to use an IT disposal service, compared with 65 percent of companies with 10,000 or more employees, the survey found.

  By providing simple and affordable asset recovery options, we hope to enable small business customers to 1) take advantage of secure, affordable and environmentally-responsible asset disposal and 2) become part of The ReGeneration, people of all ages who care about the environment.

  As always, we welcome your thoughts, comments and ideas on ways we can enhance our environmental programs. You can post them here or visit IdeaStorm. If you're interested in learning more about responsible asset disposal, you can visit our Small Business Recycling website or check out a recent article I wrote for GreenerComputing.com for more insight.

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• Is it Possible to be Everything to Everybody?

  Fri. Sep. 07, 2007
  by Laura P. Thomas, Global eCommerce

  As I hinted in my last post here, a rather large 2D web project has been taking my focus away from 3D initiatives lately. That project is a redesign of the home page of Dell.com.

  How can one single web page be a big project?  When it's a page that gets more than 35 million visitors a week.  When it is the subject of some of the most popular posts on IdeaStorm. When that one page is the entryway to both a corporate and a commerce site. When it must appeal to everyone from individual consumers to large corporate clients, from institutional investors to mainstream media and citizen journalists. When it has to be a place where a student can research a company for their freshman business class, and purchase a computer upon which to write that same paper.

  This is the challenge faced as we roll out a  beta test of a new design today in the United States. Canada will follow next week. More regions will offer the beta in the future. Here's how it will work: 20% of visitors to Dell.com over the next week will be randomly selected for this beta test. 10% of that test audience will see the page as it is today. The other 10 % will see the redesigned page.  We will then compare clickstream data and basic metrics from those two groups to determine if the new page works or not.

  How will we know if it works? If customers tell us it is easier to find the right level of information they need-whether that means finding support for existing products or researching information for future purchases, or adding to the conversation. We don't want to be an Irrelevant Corporate Website. To us, that means integrating community sites such as this blog, the Dell Community Forum, StudioDell and more. Customers like jorge are telling us the same thing on IdeaStorm.

  Click on the image below to see a larger version of the screenshot.

  
  What the redesign doesn't do is what many have voted for—eliminate customer segmentation. We still believe segmentation offers benefits for the customer and here's one reason why: when we have discussions with customers many of them say they dislike being asked to segment themselves when they begin shopping on dell.com; but, many also tell us that they use technology in very different ways and have different needs.  An example of this is a recent survey of small business owners and decision makers conducted by Dell and the International Council for Small Business.  This sort of feedback went into the development of the new Vostro line of notebooks and desktops, as well as the suite of services designed specifically to support small businesses.  As Dell continues to differentiate the products and services we offer our customers, segmentation will begin to make more sense to site visitors.

  So, if you visit Dell.com over the next week and see the new design, feel free to click on the "feedback" link at the footer of the page to let us know what you think.  Or, you can come back here and share your comments on this post.  I look forward to hearing even more opinions on this challenging page.

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