Amazon and online retail are actually a huge sociological problem in this context. If you can just order manga you like, and form bonds w/ online communities of folks w/ similar tastes on tumblr or twitter or wherever, what's the incentive to go to a physical place in your town?
Gaming stores have reinvented themselves as places to play games with others, but it'd be an interesting challenge to reinvent comic shops in that same way.
Isn't it obvious? Maybe it didn't used to be obvious how to tackle these issues in the past. But I think businesses have a fairly well understood game plan now (that Gamestop isn't following). The threat to this business is online retail, so the strategy is to pivot to things that you can't do online. So you focus on creating spaces for people to meet other enthusiasts, you bring people to the store with events, and you turn your sales people into trusted advisors.
Take a look at Waterstones as a good example - if you walk into Waterstones every single employee will be well read, they'll be informed about a large number of the books that are currently popular, and what other books the author writes etc. There'll be book signings, Q&As with local authors, book clubs etc. etc. If I go to my local Waterstones website and search for my local branch I don't just get the location, I get a list of events that are happening at the branch - There's a 9-12 book club on Saturday, there's a Costume & story telling event on Monday (for kids), and an adult book club in the evening on Friday, and an evening with a famous author in collaboration with the local university celebrating International Womens day.
Now take a look at Gamestop - rather than bringing people in to the store, they're driving people away with aggressive upsell tactics. I mean, it's honestly crazy - gamers are an incredibly vibrant community that would love somewhere they could go in real life to meet other fans of the games they love. It's an open goal. Yet gamestop is so committed to a strategy of squeezing the people that do come in to the store that they can't create that environment.
You make a good point, and candidly, we're not sure. The crux of the problem as we see it is that:
- If you enjoy shopping, you're probably pretty good at it, and don't need a lot of hand-holding.
- If you don't enjoy shopping, then a store is a bad solution. A better solution is "don't go to the store at all, we'll ship you the stuff," aka Amazon
What we're really trying to do is find the segment of the market that cares a lot about this? i.e. Willing to go shopping, if stores can just make it bit easier when you get there.
Okay, but there's the old Amazon's showroom problem.
People go to the store, look at the thing, then, maybe buy it online anyway, for any number of reasons. Net effect, physical locations become showrooms that move very little actual product, and fail to close the expected number of sales.
I think what really separates successful brick and mortar establishments in a post-amazon era like the Apple or Lego store, the restaurants, etc. is they offer you value for traveling to the place in person. The Apple Store has the genius bar/tech support, displays products for you to play with, has demos and educational offerings; the Lego store has things for people to experiment with; and of course the restaurants give you a different experience by walking in rather than ordering out. Another type of store that seems to be doing well around me are game/card stores that host MTG tournaments, tabletop adventure sessions, etc. allowing people to gather and play games together.
If stores really want to succeed in a world where you can order anything online for less money with better selection they simply NEED to give value to the experience of physically going into the store. I've often thought that Radioshack might have survived longer if they got into the maker space and offered classes in simple electronic projects rather than just becoming a mobile phone store. Clothing stores need to push helpful staff and the value of trying on clothes in the store to get a better fit and look.
> Has Kickstarter invented a new form of online commerce, where merchants who are close to you on the social graph, rather than in terms of physical geography, can thereby charge a premium for products which would never fly in the open market?
I think this is by far the most interesting sentence in the entire article. Traditionally we think of the web as a globalizing force, which will tend to strengthen big business: I might choose a mom-n-pop bookstore over Barnes and Noble if it's nearby and I'm buying in person. But online it will be at a severe disadvantage, and I'm not likely to find it at all unless I set out for it specifically. It's interesting to think that there may be an online equivalent of this physical proximity effect in the social graph. This possibility seems to open up lots of interesting avenues for discussion.
No. The cost of local inventory on display, getting shopworn(then sold cheap), getting stolen, needing to be watched and manual sales process and schlepping and Returns are time consuming. Versus online view, buy, autoschlepp - first time to see the real thing in person - most people accept, some reject = counter schlepp and credit.
AMazon and similar formats will win, the most efficient will strangle the rest.
Exceptions will be special niches that Amazon does not want to engage.
I've fantasized about this very thing, albeit with far more emphasis on the logistics angle. Building out a massive Amazon-scale logistics network and then offering that advantage exclusively to individuals. No chains, franchising or large-scale ownership permitted. Subsidies would be provided to those without capital wishing to start their own shop.
It'd be more or less a turnkey solution. The small business owners would be bringing their own decor, atmosphere, style and charm to the table; something other than a corporate chain or big box feel.
Of course, the appeal of big box retail is that everything is in one place. Therefore it might make sense to make this a real-estate play as well: group shops with complimentary offerings together, or even facilitate a market/bazaar style setup.
Why go to Walmart when you can go to a high-tech bazaar backed by modern logistics and bleeding edge point of sale tech, that offers the same goods at the same price.
Creating Amazon-scale logistics is no small investment though, so it's not really feasible idea unless you've billions to burn bootstrapping it.
That said, the idea of liberating capable people who are currently stuck in hellish retail jobs is very cool. Granted they'd still be in retail, but as shop owners with relatively high amounts of freedom and a living wage. It'd be a huge win for individuality and quality of life. The same function to society would be fulfilled, but with massive benefits to both the worker and consumer.
I hope someone does this one day, because bigbox retail and massive corporate chain restaurants need to fucking die. Their monoculture and asthetics suck the magic right out of society. There's no better illustration of this than comparing variety in big city commerce to a typical suburb. Most suburbs are veritable wastelands by comparison, and that's not even considering the extreme cases where the only store in town for most essential items is the local Walmart.
Sounds kind of dystopian to me. For what kind of goods would you find this style of shopping appealing?
Heck you could even selectively change what appears in the aisles based on shoppers preferences. But solution looking for a problem - not sure why I wouldn't rather shop online if the content is all digital
Its anecdotal of course, but many people in my age bracket 20-40 would much prefer to be able to say FU to amazon and walk to the local downtown and be able to peruse physical shops. They understand the socialization and 'home town support' that the loss of these shops and the rise of ecommerce begets.
eg. I know many people in this age bracket who would love to take a chance on one of these empty shops and create their own inspired shop of some kind, but the costs are absurdly prohibitive, namely rent and taxes, so instead, the downtown area of so many towns remain empty and desolate. startup capital costs even in semi middle of nowhere are too high to even create a 10 seat specialty cafe or anything like that
Even if we think video games are essential, and even if we think physical video games are essential, they could close and only do delivery, much as many restaurants are only doing drive-through and delivery orders.
There is no good reason to think that the social benefit of having a physical retail store open where customers are cheek-to-jowl with each other and with staff somehow outweighs the community transmission we will certainly experience.
You make good points but I think stores like Amazon with fast shipping are likely to be more convenient for people. It seems the majority of consumers would rather buy something than do it themself
A physical store, at a minimum, has built in advertising based on location. Budget in local advertising and people will shop there if prices, service, location, and the products are good. I couldnt even imagine how a new online store would be able to start competing with Amazon. There are existing webstores that over the years have lost a lot of business to amazon (Newegg, Sweetwater, B&H Photo, etc). Even local stores are losing business to amazon.
I'm involved in a community of (mostly online) retro video game dealers down in Australia. You've hit the nail on the head. The fact that e-commerce is so strong allows people to run less profitable physical stores as basically hobby clubs for meeting like-minded customers.
A lot of people in specialist retail genuinely care about the niche they're in and it's fantastic to come across someone IRL who cares about it as much as you do. It reminds you that what you're doing is appreciated.
Of course, there's also the element of status amongst the other dealers. Running a physical store definitely carries more clout than owning a big house or a Mercedes-Benz.
You don't try to out-internet the internet. You focus on your strengths - the sensory experience, retail as leisure, carefully curated selections of delightful products etc. Many retailers are in deep trouble because they've neglected the customer experience, but there's a substantial market opportunity for what one might describe as "chain boutiques".
A YouTube influencer can tell me what brand of cosmetics works for them, but they can't pick out something just for me. I can't smell a bar of soap online, I can't feel the texture of a fabric, I can't see how a watch looks on my wrist. Amazon might offer millions of books, but a lot of people prefer a choice of a few hundred books that are all excellent. Brick-and-mortar retail is qualitatively different to online retail, it satisfies different practical and emotional needs and there are still plenty of opportunities for growth.
I asked the guy at the corner bookstore if it was zero sum, and he said no. Then he offered to sell me an Econ 101 textbook, but I got it on Amazon for 1/2 the price.
We both wonder how many shops have been wiped out. I also wonder how many online businesses have been created. I work with many online vendors who sell on Amazon that would not have been viable if they had to open a brick and mortar retail location.
You're assuming that every location has equal retail possibilities.
I'm not talking about places where bookstores, electronics stores, etc... closed because of Amazon. I'm talking about the vast majority of places that never had bookstores, electronics stores, etc... in the first place.
Gaming stores have reinvented themselves as places to play games with others, but it'd be an interesting challenge to reinvent comic shops in that same way.
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