New Displays Meet New Needs for Prepaid Cellphone Stores

A dramatic shift in the cellphone industry that started with changing consumer-preferences is causing major changes in store size and store displays. As more and more cellphone users ditch their monthly, contracted plans, and switch to prepaid devices, the industry is making adjustments as well. Prepaid stores are popping up all over, with smaller footprints, and different needs for store displays.
“Many of those people don’t have cars and the stores have to be proximate to where they live,” says Jim Palmer, president of Palmer Retail Solutions. “As a result, the prepaid stores are smaller in nature with less sophisticated fixturing.”

Prepaid customers need to return to the store or kiosk regularly – often monthly – to pay their bills. So, smaller, well-located neighborhood stores become attractive to the consumers, with different needs for store fixtures.

Traditional, postpaid wireless retailers focus on one-time phone sales, so it’s important to display as many live devices as possible. Prepaid stores are positioned differently, with more of a focus on customer service during frequent return visits, often have less space and less demand for live devices.

Still, Palmer says, they need to display and properly secure retail fixtures holding at least five or six live devices just to be competitive, so he has developed special products to fill the bill. “What we’ve done to address the prepaid market,” he says, “is we’ve created very cost-effective, robust, quality fixtures that are priced to support the prepaid market.”