Intel Opening Special Pop-Up Stores for the Holidays

Intel has announced that it will be opening up several temporary retail stores during the holiday season. The so-called “experience” pop-up stores will begin to open up this month, with the first one opening in New York on November 23. More locations will open following that date, but the locations haven’t been disclosed yet.

The pop-up stores will be built specifically for holiday shopping needs and will officially close on January 25. The company posted a video on YouTube detailing the stores, and it mentions that it will offer unique things, such as free coffee every day, free movies on Fridays, lectures from local speakers and, of course, the company will showcase a bevy of laptops, desktops and tablets running Intel processors, for which customers will be able to borrow these devices to try out themselves.

Each store will be unique and will be catered toward that specific city. For example, Intel will be working closely with the local community to coordinate different events that will go on at the stores, and this will even include bringing in local inventors, makers and DIYers to showcase their stuff as part of the company’s “Tech Disruptors” program.

However, it seems like customers won’t actually be able to buy products right in the stores. Instead, you’ll have to order online while in the store. It seems as if the devices showcased in the stores are merely just for display purposes, rather than to buy outright. This seems a little strange to do, but we’ll have to wait until the stores officially open to see what the company does, as its promo video doesn’t detail the purchasing process fully.

Temporary pop-up stores are becoming extremely popular with tech companies nowadays. Microsoft is doing it, and so is Apple and Samsung inside of Best Buy stores. It seems this is a great way to sell products to the public in a more intimate environment that’s offline, and companies aren’t spending a fortune to do it, since they’re not permanently setting up shop at a nailed-down location.

This will be Intel’s first attempt at retail stores of any kind, and while the company’s products are all over the place in numerous retail locations all over the world, this will be Intel’s first attempt at doing brick-and-mortar stores themselves without the help of OEMs. Hopefully the company can pull it off.