The IT Nerd

This past Friday, I got a chance to take a tour of the new Telus Connected Experience Store in Toronto’s Eaton Center. There’s currently two of these stores in Canada (the other one is in Edmonton’s Southgate Centre), and their focus is provide shoppers with phones, related technology, and technology that you typically don’t find in a store operated by a telco. All in a very inviting and “user friendly” environment.

Here’s a quick tour of their Eaton Center location:

The first thing that you notice from the outside is that this store is bright and has space to show off featured product. You’ll also note that the store is wider than your typical Telus location. That contributes to how bright an open the store is. One thing that the picture doesn’t illustrate is where this store is. It’s in a section of the Eaton Center that has many fashion stores and not another technology store in sight. That ensures that they will get a very different clientele who is looking for something different when it comes to their technology.

One really cool thing is that you can try and touch all the technology. For example, this display has speakers that are all paired with tablets. That allows you to hear them before you buy. Now that sounds like a problem in a busy downtown Toronto mall. But it’s not. Here’s why. If you look above, there are baffles that are designed to reduce the ambient sound. Trust me, this works extremely well. When I walked into the store, you could not help but notice that the ambient noise dropped considerably. You’ll note that brands such as Fitbit, B&O and JBL are all available for sale.

Another thing that you’ll notice that there are lots of comfortable places to sit, be it a chair, a bean bag seat, or a couch. Also along the back you’ll see some of the home automation products from vendors such as Nest, Phillips Hue lighting and August smart locks. One other thing that I should point out that besides cell phones, Telus also offers Optik Internet and Optik TV out of their Western Canada location.

Here you’ll see another area which can be used for training or the activation of cell phones. Along the back wall, you’ll see phone cases from companies like OtterBox or the left, or Kate Spade on the right.

Telus does sell smart phones and they are all on display and accessible to customers. I should note that everything works as well. That way, like a lot of things in the store, you can try before you buy.

You’ll note from the product mix, it’s very “un-telco” like. That’s deliberate. Telus has made a real effort to office a unique mix of curated products that give their customers something different to choose from. And in case you’re wondering, all the staff are well trained in all the products that they offer. All of that in my mind are things that will set these stores apart from other telco retail locations. After all, how often have you purchased a phone and gone somewhere else for a case that you think is cool? Also, people are likely to enter the store to buy something like a pair of Beats headsets and they may come back their next cell phone. Both of those will bring a very different clientele to Telus and help them to continue to grow in Canada’s telco marketplace.

If you want to shop at one of these stores and you don’t live in Toronto or Edmonton, don’t worry. The company is currently planning to open additional Connected Experience stores, while introducing its smart home portfolio into an additional 50 Telus retail locations this year across Canada. Not only that, existing Telus locations will get elements of what you see here. Either way, you’re going to get a very different retail experience if you shop in Canada.

I’d like to thank Marc Jamieson, Marketing Director at Telus and Caroline Dunnet of Edelman for taking me through the Telus Connected Experience Store in the Eaton Center on a busy Friday morning, as well as providing me with the images of the store.

This entry was posted on May 9, 2016 at 7:47 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Telus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.