ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996             TAG: 9609270037
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: A-7  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS
SOURCE: JUAN B. ELIZONDO ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUYING COMPUTERS IS REAL BLAST

Move over Tupperware. The latest thing to try out and buy at a home shopping party is a personal computer.

Some former Dell Computer Corp. executives are trying to make the process of buying a PC more comfortable by making it a social experience, knowing that most people turn to a friend's advice beforehand.

Their company, Hand Technologies Inc., is recruiting consultants around the country to hold in-home parties and demonstrations of PCs. They tried the United Kingdom before starting in Austin earlier this spring.

``Our target is anybody who turns to a colleague or friend and says `What do you think I should buy?''' said Martin Slagter, who co-founded the company. ``In our minds, that's most of the market.''

Slagter and partner Andrew Harris are formalizing the kind of work done by thousands of people around the country who provide consultations or lessons about how to use a PC. Most operate independently, marketing themselves with handbills or the referrals of satisfied customers.

Hand has agreements to sell products from IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark International Inc., a leading maker of computer printers and typewriters. It also will sell software and other PC products and could eventually move into Macintosh sales, as well.

While Tupperware and Avon sales reps bring dozens of product samples for home demos or parties, it's too much for Hand's consultants to lug around a bunch of computers, printers and monitors.

Instead, they take one or two machines loaded with many kinds of software.

``What you're really showing is multimedia and functions'' of a PC, said Donna Oelfke, who became a Hand Technologies consultant this summer. ``We have the things that demonstrate the features. What [customers] want to know from me is, `Here's what I want to do' and `What can I do?'''

Slagter said, ``It's a retailer's attitude that you have to have a product there. The major process is getting them to have an understanding of the product.''

``Consumers need better information and more personalized attention when buying a PC,'' Harris said.

In-home consultants will demonstrate what computers and software can do and will design computer and software packages to suit each customer's needs.

The consultants pay Hand Technologies a $95 annual fee to cover training, part of which takes place over the Internet.

Orders will be placed via the Internet or a telephone. The consultant will help set up and familiarize customers with the computers they've bought.

Analyst David Goldstein said the company's idea sounds good but may be difficult to pull off.

``I really think customers want to see, touch and feel what they are buying before they buy it,'' said Goldstein, president of Channel Marketing Corp., a Dallas market research firm. ``It is a retail attitude, but that is what consumers are used to.''

While Hand won't have the overhead of a retailer, it also won't be as efficient as a direct PC seller like Dell or Gateway 2000 Inc., which take orders from customers over toll-free phone lines. And retailers could deal with hundreds of customers in the amount of time in which a Hand consultant works with a just a few.

``There are several things: the cost of getting the appointment, the amount of time each appointment takes and the travel time to visit with one customer at a time,'' Goldstein said.

But Harris said Hand Technologies won't experience the cost of returned computers that retailers do. Some stores see as much as 15 percent of their PCs returned, partly because customers don't get the attention they need before a purchase, he said.

While declining to report initial sales in the U.K. or sales from a six-month pilot program in Austin, Slagter and Harris said they have seen less than a 1 percent return rate, and are ahead of internal sales projections.

LENGTH: Medium:   78 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Hand Technologies co-founders Martin Slagter (left) 
          and Andrew Harris, shown at their company headquarters in Austin, 
          Texas, plan to sell personal computers in customers' homes, making 
          the buying process a social experience. color.