6 ms·

Some photos of the store https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464 https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464

by bdz 8y ago

arethuza 8y ago
Looks rather nicer than the Google store here in Edinburgh!
- auggierose 8y ago
  Actually didn't know we have a Google store :-)
  - arethuza 8y ago
    On Shandwick Place - to be fair apparently it is a "Digital Garage" offering drop in training rather than selling stuff. I walk past it every day but never been in.
whywhywhywhy 8y ago
Looks like an Apple Store light edition. Not really convinced the design and branding of the store matches up well with the realities of their actual product.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    Perhaps their thinking is that you can already find the Pi in bazaar kind of shops full of electronics parts and really aimed at tinkerers. This shop could be more for luring new users and making it look simple for a first approach.
    - giarc 8y ago
      I think you are exactly right. The customers who want the bazaar with lots of parts are already their customer and will continue to be their customer regardless of a brick and mortar store. This is trying to attract a new customer.
      - theoh 8y ago
        Let's be clear on this: the store is not located in Cambridge because there is a particularly large untapped market there. It is located in Cambridge because of the Pi's ties to the city. Maybe the huge success of the device means that there is active pressure on the RPi folks to diversify or to create a physical manifestation of the brand. Maybe a bricks and mortar store is just a vain indulgence, though I'd hope not. The RPi has always been about the "technically sweet", not about maximum penetration into new markets.
        matthewmcg 8y ago
        Context for the use of "technically sweet": DR. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER: "If the development by the enemy as well as by us of thermonuclear weapons could have been averted, I think we would be in a somewhat safer world today than we are...I do not think we want to argue technical questions here, and I do not think it is very meaningful for me to speculate as to how we would have responded had the technical picture at that time been more as it was later. However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think anybody opposed making it; there were some debates about what to do with it after it was made. I cannot very well imagine if we had known in late 1949 what we got to know by early 1951 that the tone of our report would have been the same." Setting aside the association of this phrase with the development of terrifying weapons, I think it is apt for the Raspberry Pi. The has lowered the barrier for entry to so many projects that you can just go ahead and make things rather than worrying about whether the utility of the thing is worth its cost or risk. Certainly Pi projects seem to be proliferating in my house...
  - srcmap 8y ago
    They should have area for group meeting area to host regular meetup / learning tutorial sessions for hobbyist and students. Also a lab/work bench where anyone can plug and play different components together and experiments, measure voltage, signals with an USB oscilloscopes (make with PI? ). Volunteers can come in regularly to demo, share info, organizer classes. Instead of just shelf full of the products - it should also have area where it run a lot of the interesting projects found on the web AI object recognition with YOLO2|3, PI self driving car, etc
    - maaaats 8y ago
      Why should they? This is trying to reach new people, not cater to existing hackers in the same way. You could always just visit a hackerspace. Having this in a high street locations would be extremely expensive and waste of resources.
      - GordonS 8y ago
        What about maybe getting groups of school kids in? I'm sure plenty would have their interest piqued and end up making a purchase (or their parents, depending on age)
      - untog 8y ago
        Even in that context I think a learning space would be good. Apple runs classes in their Apple Stores, and I know a good number of (typically older) people who learned to use their iPad that way. Something similar for the Pi could bring in a new audience, not cater to existing hackers.
      - roywiggins 8y ago
        Stuff on the high street seems more likely to reach new people than stuff in a hackerspace, which are a bit intimidating if you don't know anything about hackerspaces. Offering taster classes and workshops to get people interested in the product could be a great use of the space.
  - folkrav 8y ago
    The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...
    - whywhywhywhy 8y ago
      > Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget tablet around the same price then kids are going to just end up with tablets and never have the opportunity to crack the machine open. If the product doesn't live up to the sales pitch of the store, then the product is just going to get returned.
      - wolfgke 8y ago
        > I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget tablet around the same price then kids are going to just end up with tablets and never have the opportunity to crack the machine open. For the children that love to tinker, $€35 will probably not be an obstacle. Tablets and RPis appeal to quite different audiences.
      - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
        Tinkering is not the same as consuming media/games. The kids who play with tablets and the kids who tinker with pis are completely different demographics( or the same person at different times). While I agree that the rpi leaves a lot to be desired( and other boards have left it in the dust hardware-wise) it is still the most accessible board out there and to say that they haven't improved on that is false( especially with software).
        whywhywhywhy 8y ago
- wc_cs 8y ago
  I believe they're trying to market to the general public. If Apple stores are good at turning heads from how they are designed, then it makes sense to apply that design to their own store. It's about getting people inside.
  - benj111 8y ago
    I see what you're saying, but don't you then run the risk of people not understanding what they're buying. It's ok selling it like an iphone, but if people are expecting an iphone, they're going to be disappointed. Apple branding, stores and USP all kind of complement each other in that minimalist 'just works' feel. Raspi isn't that.
    - makomk 8y ago
      They don't care so long as they can spin it as the buyer's fault. Early on, before the Pi even launched, they encouraged grassroots marketing campaigns which (amongst other things) promoted the Pi as a consumer-y kind of home entertainment device. One of their forum members pointed out that this might lead to disappointment because it really wasn't a plug-and-play consumer device and required a certain amount of technical knowledge, and his concerns were roundly dismissed. Then after it launched, their staff complained that people who wrongly thought of it as some kind of consumer entertainment device were unfairly giving it a bad reputation because they didn't have the technical skills to get it working.
      - benj111 8y ago
        Do you have any links to point to? I don't recall any of that kind of marketing. Here is a contemporaneous example where the focus is very much on education https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17190918 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17190918

Some photos of the store https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464 https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464

by bdz 8y ago

Some photos of the store https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464 https://twitter.com/Raspberry_Pi/status/1093454153534398464

arethuza 8y ago

Looks rather nicer than the Google store here in Edinburgh!

auggierose 8y ago
Actually didn't know we have a Google store :-)
- arethuza 8y ago
  On Shandwick Place - to be fair apparently it is a "Digital Garage" offering drop in training rather than selling stuff. I walk past it every day but never been in.

whywhywhywhy 8y ago

Looks like an Apple Store light edition. Not really convinced the design and branding of the store matches up well with the realities of their actual product.

ekianjo 8y ago
Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.
- hrktb 8y ago
  Perhaps their thinking is that you can already find the Pi in bazaar kind of shops full of electronics parts and really aimed at tinkerers. This shop could be more for luring new users and making it look simple for a first approach.
  - giarc 8y ago
    I think you are exactly right. The customers who want the bazaar with lots of parts are already their customer and will continue to be their customer regardless of a brick and mortar store. This is trying to attract a new customer.
    - theoh 8y ago
      Let's be clear on this: the store is not located in Cambridge because there is a particularly large untapped market there. It is located in Cambridge because of the Pi's ties to the city. Maybe the huge success of the device means that there is active pressure on the RPi folks to diversify or to create a physical manifestation of the brand. Maybe a bricks and mortar store is just a vain indulgence, though I'd hope not. The RPi has always been about the "technically sweet", not about maximum penetration into new markets.
      - matthewmcg 8y ago
        Context for the use of "technically sweet": DR. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER: "If the development by the enemy as well as by us of thermonuclear weapons could have been averted, I think we would be in a somewhat safer world today than we are...I do not think we want to argue technical questions here, and I do not think it is very meaningful for me to speculate as to how we would have responded had the technical picture at that time been more as it was later. However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think anybody opposed making it; there were some debates about what to do with it after it was made. I cannot very well imagine if we had known in late 1949 what we got to know by early 1951 that the tone of our report would have been the same." Setting aside the association of this phrase with the development of terrifying weapons, I think it is apt for the Raspberry Pi. The has lowered the barrier for entry to so many projects that you can just go ahead and make things rather than worrying about whether the utility of the thing is worth its cost or risk. Certainly Pi projects seem to be proliferating in my house...
- srcmap 8y ago
  They should have area for group meeting area to host regular meetup / learning tutorial sessions for hobbyist and students. Also a lab/work bench where anyone can plug and play different components together and experiments, measure voltage, signals with an USB oscilloscopes (make with PI? ). Volunteers can come in regularly to demo, share info, organizer classes. Instead of just shelf full of the products - it should also have area where it run a lot of the interesting projects found on the web AI object recognition with YOLO2|3, PI self driving car, etc
  - maaaats 8y ago
    Why should they? This is trying to reach new people, not cater to existing hackers in the same way. You could always just visit a hackerspace. Having this in a high street locations would be extremely expensive and waste of resources.
    - GordonS 8y ago
      What about maybe getting groups of school kids in? I'm sure plenty would have their interest piqued and end up making a purchase (or their parents, depending on age)
    - untog 8y ago
      Even in that context I think a learning space would be good. Apple runs classes in their Apple Stores, and I know a good number of (typically older) people who learned to use their iPad that way. Something similar for the Pi could bring in a new audience, not cater to existing hackers.
    - roywiggins 8y ago
      Stuff on the high street seems more likely to reach new people than stuff in a hackerspace, which are a bit intimidating if you don't know anything about hackerspaces. Offering taster classes and workshops to get people interested in the product could be a great use of the space.
- folkrav 8y ago
  The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...
  - whywhywhywhy 8y ago
    > Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget tablet around the same price then kids are going to just end up with tablets and never have the opportunity to crack the machine open. If the product doesn't live up to the sales pitch of the store, then the product is just going to get returned.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget tablet around the same price then kids are going to just end up with tablets and never have the opportunity to crack the machine open. For the children that love to tinker, $€35 will probably not be an obstacle. Tablets and RPis appeal to quite different audiences.
    - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
      Tinkering is not the same as consuming media/games. The kids who play with tablets and the kids who tinker with pis are completely different demographics( or the same person at different times). While I agree that the rpi leaves a lot to be desired( and other boards have left it in the dust hardware-wise) it is still the most accessible board out there and to say that they haven't improved on that is false( especially with software).
      - whywhywhywhy 8y ago
wc_cs 8y ago
I believe they're trying to market to the general public. If Apple stores are good at turning heads from how they are designed, then it makes sense to apply that design to their own store. It's about getting people inside.
- benj111 8y ago
  I see what you're saying, but don't you then run the risk of people not understanding what they're buying. It's ok selling it like an iphone, but if people are expecting an iphone, they're going to be disappointed. Apple branding, stores and USP all kind of complement each other in that minimalist 'just works' feel. Raspi isn't that.
  - makomk 8y ago
    They don't care so long as they can spin it as the buyer's fault. Early on, before the Pi even launched, they encouraged grassroots marketing campaigns which (amongst other things) promoted the Pi as a consumer-y kind of home entertainment device. One of their forum members pointed out that this might lead to disappointment because it really wasn't a plug-and-play consumer device and required a certain amount of technical knowledge, and his concerns were roundly dismissed. Then after it launched, their staff complained that people who wrongly thought of it as some kind of consumer entertainment device were unfairly giving it a bad reputation because they didn't have the technical skills to get it working.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Do you have any links to point to? I don't recall any of that kind of marketing. Here is a contemporaneous example where the focus is very much on education https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17190918 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17190918