Two of the nation’s major cell phone companies are expanding their presence by locating dedicated retail shops inside some Best Buy stores, according to a report on latimes.com.

Verizon announced Tuesday it was going to open new Verizon Experience stores in 250 Best Buy locations across the country.  In these outlets, consumers can try out the latest versions of smartphones, tablets and apps and services.

At the same time, Verizon rival AT&T plans to open 250 dedicated retail shops of their own in many of the same Best Buy locations.

Verizon says it is already in the process of opening the Verizon Experience shops and plans to have as many as 100 locations available by the end of the month, shooting for a goal of the entire 250 locations by the end of this year.  The new retail space will not take the place of Best Buy’s current Verizon phone areas already within the stores.

Best Buy, noting that more and more customers are making purchases online, has been turning a portion of its floor space over to other retailers.  Normally, the companies will rent the floor space form Best Buy, but no financial details have been released.

A spokesman from Best Buy said the new retail shops would allow the electronic giant to even better service their customers.  Adding the mobile device plans and service can sometimes be confusing to consumers, Best Buy wants to help their shoppers make sense of it all.

In turn, Best Buy would expect to increase foot traffic in their stores as well.

Best Buy employees manning the retail shops for the carriers will be trained specially to assist customers with specific questions about the services.

The hope of the companies is that demonstrations of their products by trained personnel will be more likely to convince customers to purchase than simply seeing the item in a display.