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Shoppers demand 'try before you buy' phone stores

Plastic dummies not sufficient, survey finds

Most consumers think the ability to play with a working handset in-store would help them decide which model to buy, a YouGov survey has discovered.

The organisation questioned almost 10,000 people who were actively shopping for a mobile phone earlier this year and found that 91 per cent thought a ‘try before you buy’ policy would have aided their decision making.

Yet only 44 per cent of respondents said they had been into a store where it was possible to handle a working model.

Britain's High Streets account for 34 per cent of all mobile phone sales in the UK, YouGov said, but online sales – which account for 53 per cent of sales - phone sales didn’t escape consumer criticism either.

For example, more than one third of shoppers said they didn’t buy a handset online because of “staff deficiencies” on telephone sales lines, and websites with poor layouts or navigability. ®

Latest Comments

Re- It might have saved the Ifonie buyers?

Blimey!!! If shops demonstrated the 'ifonie' very, very few of the other makes would be sold, especially Windoze Mobile or whatever they are calling it this month.

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It might have saved the Ifonie buyers?

I wonder if the ifonie would have done so well if the muppets had tried it first, and discovered how stupid it is to use.

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I agree

You can stll secure the phone and those bastards will not be able to run away with it.

I went today to O2 store and I saw a O2 XDA guide. Looks neat but suspiciously similar to my xda orbit 2. The description was minimal and I had no way of seeing what is the difference since it plastic. They dont have or unwilling to show me a live one. So yes, seeing a live one at a store gives a pretty good idea what is the phone is all about; is the interface slow, what apps in it etc... As such i have to rely on outside review which may or may not be accurate depending on the reviewer taste.

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Yeah Yeah

All those bastards want is a phone in their hand and a clear run at the door to make good with their legs across open ground.

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