Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
boomer5
Newbie

People in Small Towns in Iowa will no longer be able to purchase their cell phones or have help with their plans locally.  They will now have to do everything online or travel to the city to a "megastore" to purchase their phone.  Verizon has decided they want to use the ‘megastore’ approach or have customers purchase and maintain their phones and accounts through their online customer service centers. Verizon Wireless is basically saying it does not care about Small Town Iowa.  Jobs will be lost for those in the small farming communities who worked in these stores and where people like My 75 year old mom could just drive 10 miles to get a new cell phone she will now have to drive 70 miles to Omaha or Des Moines to a "megastore" to get a new phone.  Shame on you Verizon Wireless!

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Re: Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Are these third party retailer stores closing or corporate stores?

For the longest time, the only Verizon store I went to was over an hour (45 miles) away from where I lived. Not even a third party retailer was within 20 miles. I chose to shop online and have everything shipped to me as needed.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
rcschnoor
Legend

This could just be economics. There may not be enough customers to justify having a store.

I know that this may not apply to your mother, but as to having to drive 70 miles to a larger city for a store, my 70 y/o mother and 90 y/o grandmother drive to larger cities multiple times a year just to go shopping and love to do so. Sometimes I even drive them myself.

When cell phones are replaced on average once every 2 years, this does not seem like much of a hardship.

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Re: Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
budone
Legend

I have the same question as Ann154. Was this a third party reseller? VZW Corporate does not have small stores, they all (Least the ones I have seen) are nearly all the exact same layout and size.

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Re: Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

The stores vary slightly in size and layout in the Omaha area. Mostly because they are dependant on the lease space they occupy.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Verizon Wireless pulls plug on local stores in Rural Iowa- Do you Agree?
Misty88
Enthusiast - Level 1

I live in Iowa too and have noticed a few more 'local' stores have closed...I don't think it's that Verizon wants a megastore or anything like that. In my area, hardly anyone ever went to the 'local' stores. The few times I did, I wasn't impressed.They only had a handful of phones/accessories and they didn't really know as much as the bigger store one town away. For example, it took me over an hour to troubleshoot my phone at the local location whereas they knew exactly what was going on/what needed to be done at the bigger store and I was in and out in less than a half-hour I've found it's much easier to go to the bigger store vs the local.

This is all my opinion, of course.