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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

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.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago
Mall bookstores have sought to do just that over the last few years. They have slashed their stock of actual books and instead have focused on shelving things of more visual appeal: vinyl records, imported Japanese sets and other bric-a-brac, cute Kikkerland products, etc. In spite of developing that stock that looks nice, I don’t think it is enough to keep those stores afloat. People might walk in and look at that stuff, they might use the store as a “leisure” opportunity, but they don’t necessarily buy much. After all, a lot of those vinyl records and Kikkerland stuff is available online for much cheaper. Even if visitors do make a purchase from the brick-and-mortar shop, are enough of them doing it to pay the high rents on mall spaces? One large non-mall bookstore in my town went the route of moving away from selling purely books towards highlighting more attractive items. When even this was not enough to actually make money, they stayed afloat by turning a whole floor of the shop into a membership-based coworking space. Mall bookstores don’t have that luxury, again due to very constrained space.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago

Mall bookstores have sought to do just that over the last few years. They have slashed their stock of actual books and instead have focused on shelving things of more visual appeal: vinyl records, imported Japanese sets and other bric-a-brac, cute Kikkerland products, etc. In spite of developing that stock that looks nice, I don’t think it is enough to keep those stores afloat. People might walk in and look at that stuff, they might use the store as a “leisure” opportunity, but they don’t necessarily buy much. After all, a lot of those vinyl records and Kikkerland stuff is available online for much cheaper. Even if visitors do make a purchase from the brick-and-mortar shop, are enough of them doing it to pay the high rents on mall spaces? One large non-mall bookstore in my town went the route of moving away from selling purely books towards highlighting more attractive items. When even this was not enough to actually make money, they stayed afloat by turning a whole floor of the shop into a membership-based coworking space. Mall bookstores don’t have that luxury, again due to very constrained space.