October 2007 - Posts

  • Electronics Recycling Update

    The Dell Asset Recovery Services team is in Atlanta today and tomorrow for E-Scrap 2007, an international conference highlighting the latest e-recycling trends and policies.

    Earlier today, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel that explored market conditions and factors across the globe, with a specific focus on how emerging trends will impact end-of-life management of electronics in the United States and elsewhere. Among the key themes discussed was the need for manufacturers to offer convenient recycling programs, something Dell has embraced for several years.

    Today, we are the only manufacturer to offer free recycling services for our own branded computer equipment worldwide without requiring new product purchases. You may remember that Michael has been publicly challenging others in the industry to join us in this effort.

    Environmental benchmarks and goals are a longstanding cornerstone of our business. We reported the recovery of more than 78 million pounds (nearly 40,000 tons) of unwanted information-technology equipment from customers in 2006, a 93 percent increase over 2005 and 12.4 percent of the equipment we sold seven years earlier (more than any other manufacturer that reports recovery progress by past sales weight). This puts us ahead of schedule to achieve our goal of recovering 275 million pounds of equipment by 2009.

    Last month, we simplified recycling for small businesses with an online service that enables customers with fewer than 10 pieces of computer equipment to easily manage, return and track unwanted assets. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to check out the video overview at StudioDell.

    Our customers are our most important partner in our efforts to protect the environment. From energy efficiency, to climate stewardship to reuse and recycling, we'll be sure to keep you posted on our commitment to become the "greenest" technology company on Earth.

    In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts and environmentally-focused ideas on ways we can continue to enhance our partnership for a cleaner environment.

  • Staples to Offer Dell Systems, Ink & Toner

    Today we announced a retail agreement with Staples, the world's largest office supply retail chain. Beginning on November 11, we will begin selling some Dell systems, displays, printers and ink and toner throughout 1,400 Staples stores across the United States. 

    Since we entered the printer market with Dell-branded printers in 2003, customers purchased replacement ink and toner via Dell.com. While that process has worked well for many of our customers, some like guardianxps shared an idea called "Sell ink cartridges at local retail" in the early days of IdeaStorm. We will still offer continue to offer ink and toner online—the only thing that this changes is that customers will have more options to get replacements when they need them.

    As far as systems and other hardware, we will offer unique configurations of our Inspiron 1521 and 1721 notebooks, our Inspiron 530 desktop, the 19-inch SE198WFP or the 22-inch E228WFP widescreen LCD displays. As far as printers, we will offer Dell's 926 and 948 all-in-one inkjets and the 1320c color laser printer. Staples will offer ink and toner for most models of our printers. Customers can recycle by returning used Dell cartridges to the store for a $3.00 coupon that is good toward a future ink purchase.

    With this agreement, Dell products are now available in over 10,000 stores worldwide. It's all part of our evolving retail strategy. If you're interested in seeing all retail-related blog content, please take a look at the Retail category. Otherwise, you can also get an RSS feed to the retail-specific blog content here.

  • Ratings & Reviews in More Languages

    Late last week, we rolled out ratings and reviews functionality in France, Germany and Spain for Consumer and Business systems.

    Since we began offering the ability to share ratings and reviews on October 4, we've now expanded the functionality to the following countries:

    We plan to offer in more languages moving forward.

    Update 10/20—Direct2Dell reader MButler was correct to point out that I could have been more clear explaining how customers could get to ratings and reviews from the main home page. There are a couple of different ways you can get there, but essentially, you need to get to the product level to get to the ratings. If I can use Canada as an example, from the main home page, click Home & Home Office from the Notebook section.

    On the next page, if you scroll down a bit, you will see the Inspiron 1501 and the 1420. If you look just below the image of either, you will see a star rating graphic like this one:

    Clicking on that will bring you to the reviews page for the Inspiron 1420:

    Clicking on the red Product Details button will bring you to the Inspiron 1420 product page, where you can see thee review average, read all the reviews, or write one yourself.

    Otherwise, you can also get to ratings and reviews by going directly to the product page itself.

    I've hyperlinked the above images, so you can click on them to get to the corresponding page. Hope

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