Dell taps National Bookstore as reseller

MANILA, Philippines - Dell Philippines broke out from the mold by being the first PC company to tap National Bookstore as a reseller.

Traditionally, IT companies appoint seasoned computer distributors and dealers that operate computer shops in major malls to carry their products. Dell, however, believes computers are now undoubtedly considered office and school supplies that it is just right to be in the shelves of National Bookstore, the country’s oldest and biggest chain of bookstores.

The partnership between Dell and National Bookstore will have the latter reselling exclusively the Dell Adamo M13 notebook PC. National Bookstore will also carry, albeit not exclusively, other Dell products such as Dell Inspiron notebook PCs, Dell monitors and Dell peripherals.

In a brief program to announce the partnership to media, Trina Licauco-Alindogan, National Bookstore’s regional manager, said Dell products are valuable additions to National Bookstore’s merchandise mix as laptop computers are now considered must-have school and office supplies, too.

“We are selling the Dell Adamo M13 at National Bookstore now and we have trained our own people to sell the computers with the help of Dell’s own sales team,” Alindogan said.

Karen Gonzales, Dell’s country marketing manager, said they are excited to see how consumers will find the idea of buying their next notebook computers at National Bookstore, especially as many Filipinos grew up buying only the usual school supplies at this old institution.

“Over the course of this partnership, we could look at including our other consumer lines, but right now we decided to have National Bookstore exclusively offer one of our high-end lines, the Dell Adamo, to show that we are serious about this,” Gonzales said.

The Dell Adamo M13 features a 13.4-inch LED display, has a five-hour battery life, Bluetooth and mobile broadband functions, a 1.3-megapixel camera, full-sized keyboard, and solid-state drive, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium operating system.

The entire unit is only 0.65-inch thick and available in silver aluminum, pearl and onyx brushed aluminum finish. It costs P23,333.17 and is available only at five National Bookstore branches: TriNoma, Quezon Avenue, Shangri-La Mall, Glorietta 5, and Robinsons Manila.