Content area
Full Text
Have you paged your kid today?
Children and teen-agers represent a growing market for Boise-area pager dealers, according to several salespersons, parents and youth agencies.
To many parents, a pager is a good way to stay in touch with the child. And the beeper-wearing youngsters find the pager to be a convenience as well as a status symbol (trends: wild colors, adjustable "beep" music, digital message capability).
Jennifer Hudson, store manager for InterPage at the Boise Towne Square mall, said that quite often, a parent wants a child to have a pager so the parent can reach the child.
"There's a market out there for everybody ... kids, parents, business people. Anybody can use a pager," she said.
Kids often visit the store to look at pagers. "They are becoming more popular with kids," said Hudson, noting youngsters 12 and older seem to be especially interested.
The kids like colorful pagers. "They come in all different colors," Hudson said, though manufacturers haven't come out with pagers especially for kids.
Cost is not a barrier to entry into the pager market for youngsters, she said. New pagers cost around $40 to $90, while refurbished used models cost less. Pager dealers offer maintenance and repair contracts, although youngsters aren't especially rough on them, she added.
"Just because a kid has a pager doesn't mean he's dealing drugs. Most kids don't use it for that purpose," said Hudson. The vast majority use the pager to stay in contact with parents and friends, she said. Parents find it a useful tool by which to ask the...