Influx

Last November, Orange opened its first flagship store in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The store is built around five themes of “learn”, “play”, “enjoy”, “buy” and “meet”. The store has “phone trainers”, instead of salespeople and the experience is designed to help people learn and explore the new possibilities of mobile technology.

The store even has on-site repair, sound studio used by MTV for broadcasts, a cafe and a restaurant.

The store was designed by cutting-edge Dutch design firm, QuA. Photos of the store can be seen on their website.

Orange’s move is consistent with those of the leading players in Japan and a recent announcement by Nokia for the US.

If US wireless network providers want to increase ARPU they are going to need to do way more with retail and make it more interesting than their current sterile mall-boxes, with zero atmosphere, boring brochures, limited customer service and poor handset display and merchandising.

Maybe, the US cable companies, also need to brighten up and mobilize their retail offerings. They seems so keen to tell us all to the new world of entertainment, but when we need to see it, there is no place to go. The last time Influx checked, the local Comcast office was just a dull box that could only hand out cable boxes.

Time to do something more than advertise.