Subject: [NEXTEL-1] More selling cellular

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:45:11 -0400

More selling cellular
June 12, 2003 11:37am

Wireless retailers pop up all over area
By JOE KOHN

Times Herald
Brant Jones has had Nextel. He's had
Voicestream. He's had Verizon Wireless.

And last week, the 20-year-old Casco
Township man settled on a new cellular phone
with a package from Cingular Wireless.

"There's a lot of phones, and a lot of options,"
said Jones, waiting for his new Sony 360
model flip phone from Metrocell Inc. in Fort
Gratiot's Birchwood Mall.

Apparently, plenty of locals want to keep up
with Jones. The area's cellular phone retailers -
amid growing popularity of their products - say
the only thing that can slow them down, even in a slumped economy, is that
cellular phone retailers are everywhere.

"It's tough when you have too many people trying to gather the same customers,"
said Dennis Jackson, manager of Metrocell Inc., which used to be the mall's
exclusive cellular phone retailer but now is one of a half dozen.

Blue Water Area dealers say the increase in competition is common. As cellular
phone rate plans drop, even to the point at which they're cheaper than home phone
lines, more salespeople want to get in on the demand.
"You see them in party stores and everywhere," said Colleen Riley, co-owner of
Blue Water Wireless, which once was the only cellular phone retailer in
Marysville.

"There's one that just opened up one street over from us - same carriers as us.
There are no rules."
Indeed, phone stores typically are coupled with other businesses, such as
satellite television retailers, electronics shops and retail giants such as
Wal-Mart and Meijer.

The competition necessitates pricing games.
"Prices are set by (the phone companies)," said Ron Radatz, manager of T & R
Electronics in Port Huron, "but sometimes dealers take money out of their
commission to lower the cost. Everybody has to play the pricing game."

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