Retail stores are where you sell things, right? Not in this century, they’re not! Verizon has opened two mall-front properties to showcase its FiOS IPTV offering “with little advertisement or fanfare,” says this AP story.

FiOS is the fiber-to-the-home service Om reported on yesterday, saying its early progress seemed relatively more impressive than AT&T’s IPTV rollout.

The current issue of the New Yorker has a funny little piece describing the New York City Nokia store. Since Nokia doesn’t subsidize its in-store handsets by selling calling plans, the store is really more of a Nokia themepark.

The Verizon stores, currently only located in Fairfax, Virginia, and Southlake, Texas, are also pushing marketing over merchandise:

Verizon would not discuss whether it has sold any FiOS subscriptions since the store opened, saying the information is proprietary. But Johnson said the stores serve their purpose even if customers don’t sign up on the spot, because they expose new customers to products and services in a favorable way.

Katie has covered Nokia and Motorola stores. The touchpoint in most cases is the recent success of Apple’s stylish retail outfits, though the computer maker certainly wasn’t the first to try.