Verizon and AT&T have sold their smartphones in Best Buy stores for some time now, but today the two carriers announced that they’re beefing up their presence in some BBY shops.
Verizon Experience Stores will be rolling out to select Best Buy retail locations this year. The Experience Stores will let you try Verizon’s connected devices, tablets, smartphones, apps, and services, and each one will have “dedicated and highly-trained Best Buy employees who are knowledgeable on Verizon products and services.”
Verizon says it’s already rolling Experience Stores out to Best Buy locations and plan to have almost 100 up and running before the end of September. That number is expected to grow to 250 by the end of 2015.
Meanwhile, AT&T is expanding its presence in Best Buy stores in a similar way. Starting this month, AT&T will launch “store within a store” areas in select Best Buy locations that’ll be used to show off smartphones and tablets as well as wearables, connected car devices, and Digital Life home automation and security products. AT&T plans to initially use 4K TVs to hawk its DirecTV services, too. These areas will have their own dedicated employees that are specially trained on AT&T products.
These expanded AT&T shops will be in 250 Best Buy stores around the country by the end of 2015.
These Best Buy specialty shops are meant to augment the existing mobile areas that are already in Best Buy stores. Typically those areas shows smartphones, tablets, and maybe a couple of hotspots. Verizon and AT&T increasingly getting into wearables as well as connected cars and homes, though, and so they need more space to show this stuff of in non-carrier stores like Best Buy.
