Aventura, Fla. — TigerDirect unveiled a new retail format here this weekend that features an interactive home-automation section and other showroom enhancements.
The 400-square-foot connected-home department has 10 dioramas representing various rooms in a house, as well as a full-sized home-theater display and live security-camera demo, all under a roof-like setting. The vignettes are controlled by tablets employing the Insteon and Zwave platforms, and graphically demonstrate various remote functions like lighting, security and leak detection to help make the concept more comprehensible to consumers, the retailer said.
“The category is brand new and hard to demonstrate,” said retail development VP Enas Raynor, who also created Circuit City’s innovative small-format “The City” concept. “No one is doing what we’re doing.”
The pilot “Store of the Future” also features an expansive TV wall, a first for TigerDirect, and a business services area that Richard Leeds, chairman/CEO of parent company Systemax, said positions the chain as “a showroom for integrators.”
Retail president Terry Perrin has also expanded the home assortment with such categories as mattresses and bedding, lighting, small appliances and even wall- and freestanding safes.
TigerDirect provided vendors with a preview of its concept store on Friday night and formally unveiled it to the public on Saturday. Perrin said the company will tweak and evaluate the home automation section and could begin rolling it out to other locations within the 34-store chain by January.
