Dell to sell ‘next to new’ products to Irish market


17 Nov 2004

Dell yesterday opened its new Irish outlet store, which will sell Irish businesses and consumers refurbished computers at heavily discounted prices with a minimum of a one-year warranty. The store will sell the full range of Dell goods, ranging from workstations to servers and desktops to notebooks.

The outlet store – accessible at www.dell.ie/outlet – will offer discounts of around 15pc on “good as new” products; products that had been returned for various reasons such as cancellations or specification changes.

As soon as the equipment is returned it is put through the production process again at Dell’s Limerick manufacturing plant; re-built to original factory specifications and is tested to ensure that the returned product matches brand new products in terms of quality and performance.

The Dell outlet service has been running in the States for a number of years and most recently in the UK. After the Irish store is up and running the service will be rolled out to a number of other European countries over the next two years.

The concept will appeal to cost-conscious businesses and consumers who are prepared to buy equipment with a one-year warranty.

Siliconrepublic.com had learned of plans to open the outlet store in Ireland back in September, but the plans were denied by Dell at the time.

The marketing manager of Dell’s outlet store in the Republic, Sharon Bannerton, said that the company is anticipating brisk business in the run-up to Christmas.

She said: “The purest, most direct form of relationships with customers is through the internet. This complements our main online store by providing more choice and flexibility, particularly to those customers who may have cost considerations or who do not need to custom configure, but who still wish to purchase quality technology from a trusted technology partner. We believe that the outlet store will offer Irish customers great value, particularly in the run up to the busy Christmas period.”

By John Kennedy