Here’s an idea from PEI’s Peter Rukavina on selling cell phones in a way that offers people a chance to try the phone before getting locked into a multi-year contract.
As Rukavina says:
"Why is it that I can go up to Charlottetown Toyota, let them take a photocopy of my driver’s license, and drive away in a $20,000 automobile for a test drive, but my experience of a $400 mobile phone is limited to fondling an inert lump while surrounded by giant photos of happy people calling their loved ones in Prague?"
I think I spent at least as much time researching cell phones as I did cars, when we made our last purchase. The guy in the store actually let me try the cell phone, but that’s only because he happened to be using the one I was interested in. Otherwise, I was left to fondle the inert lumps in the display case…