Sean Nero

Lo­cal con­sumers can look for­ward to al­most im­me­di­ate ac­cess to new in­no­va­tions from tech­nol­o­gy-gi­ant Sam­sung, now that the com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished a Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store at Gulf City, San Fer­nan­do.The spe­cial­ty store, which opens to­day, will car­ry Sam­sung's full range of prod­ucts, de­vices and ac­ces­sories.

Michelle Al­varez, project man­ag­er for the Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store, Latin Amer­i­ca, told the T&T Guardian: "We will def­i­nite­ly try to do it the same day. That's our plan. When­ev­er we launch a project, we try to do a glob­al launch. If not the same day, the same week, but that's our plan."We don't want peo­ple to think of our store as a place where they can just buy a prod­uct. It's about the ex­pe­ri­ence. We want them to go there and in­ter­act with the prod­uct. They can ac­tu­al­ly see for them­selves how it works and what each prod­uct has to of­fer."

The new store is the re­sult of a part­ner­ship with lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor, Cell Mas­ter. Al­varez would not re­veal the cost of set­ting up the store, but said the ini­tial in­vest­ment was shared.T&T is the fourth Caribbean ter­ri­to­ry in which tech gi­ant has opened a se­lect store. The first Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store opened in Aru­ba in April, fol­lowed by stores in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Ja­maica.

It took just un­der five months to plan and set up the spe­cial­ty store in T&T. Al­varez was in T&T in Au­gust to ne­go­ti­ate terms of use for the space rec­om­mend­ed for the store.Jorge Lopez, Sam­sung's re­gion­al mo­bile prod­uct man­ag­er for the Caribbean, said the de­ci­sion to open a spe­cial­ty store comes from mar­ket re­search which guides the com­pa­ny to re­gions where de­mand for its prod­uct showed sus­tained growth.

He said the Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store is not about pro­mo­tions, but rather about teach­ing and ed­u­cat­ing cus­tomers on pur­chas­ing prod­ucts and mak­ing bet­ter use of de­vis­es.

"At the store, Sam­sung rep­re­sen­ta­tives will help you make the right de­ci­sion. For me, it's an ex­cel­lent project, be­cause my needs are dif­fer­ent from your needs. Maybe the Note 3 will be ex­cel­lent for me, but not for you. In that case we have the S4, or one of the oth­er mod­els. This is the val­ue as­pect that we add in our Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store," Lopez ex­plained.He said a se­cret con­sumer sur­vey showed that the lo­cal ap­petite for Sam­sung's prod­ucts and so­lu­tions is in­sa­tiable.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about mak­ing prod­ucts more af­ford­able and the po­ten­tial of such a de­ci­sion to widen its con­sumer net, Al­varez said: "Just be­cause it is a Sam­sung store doesn't mean it will be pre­mi­um priced. The prices that we will have will be re­al­ly com­pet­i­tive in the lo­cal mar­ket. What­ev­er you find at an­oth­er store, you will be able to find it at a com­pet­i­tive price in this store."

The Caribbean's con­tri­bu­tion to the growth of Sam­sung has sur­prised the com­pa­ny's ex­ec­u­tives, Lopez said, and T&T and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic are dri­ving the tech­nol­o­gy gi­ant's growth in the re­gion.

"That means the Caribbean busi­ness for us is be­com­ing one of our most im­por­tant busi­ness in Latin Amer­i­ca. Why is Sam­sung in­vest­ing in this store? Be­cause we be­lieve it is a re­al­ly good mar­ket. The mar­ket is grow­ing re­al­ly fast. The peo­ple are lov­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. Sam­sung's at­trac­tive­ness to the con­sumer was its fo­cus on in­no­va­tion and un­der­stand­ing con­sumer needs," said Lopez.