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I see a lot of vacant street-level real estate here in Vienna, Austria. These used to be shops and restaurants that I suppose we already on the brink before the
by mherrmann 6y ago
I see a lot of vacant street-level real estate here in Vienna, Austria. These used to be shops and restaurants that I suppose we already on the brink before the crisis. Does anybody have an idea what will happen to all this space after the crisis is over?
- ulfw 6y agoNew entrepreneurs will open their little boutiques or coffee shops or whatever else in them
- op00to 6y agoYou don’t think they will be replaced by huge chains that are able to weather the poor economy?
- trebligdivad 6y agoThe huge chains aren't doing much better at the moment; they're hunkering down and closing lots of shops.
- graeme 6y agoThere’s no magic in a huge chain. If locations don’t make money, they close them. Space tends to go to places with a profitable use.
- mc32 6y agoExactly. Witness Lord & Taylor or it’s parent company. Or Starbucks having to close down shops. A closed shop is a closed shop even if the parent co survives.
- dominotw 6y agocheesecake factory
- WillPostForFood 6y agoChains have many advantages over small businesses that give them more durability during downturns. They have deep pockets, and greater ability to borrow. The location today is unprofitable, but they can afford to look out a year and decide to eat losses, expecting to make it up. Small businesses, especially retail, are much more susceptible to cash flow disruption. They also have economies of scale that let them run at higher margins, so they often will be losing less during tough times because they are spending less. You can see it in action in almost any trendy neighborhood. Each downturn kills some small shops, and chains survive. A unique shopping district in 2007 now starts looking like an outdoor Westfield Shopping center. Is the Apple store in Brooklyn closing down because it isn't profitable today? They can sit on the lease for two years with zero revenue if they want. Meanwhile the boutique denim shop or tea house is already out of business 2 months ago.
- TheCoelacanth 6y agoChains also have the ability to leverage themselves much more than a small business can. We saw a lot of heavily leveraged chains going bankrupt within a month or two of the start of the lockdowns.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoA lot of the big chains have been struggling in the UK. This started way before the thing came along.
- felipemnoa 6y agoThis is exactly what I'm seeing here in Brooklyn. Lots of businesses went out of business but new ones have already taken their place.
- hh3k0 6y agoClever way to entrepreneur yourself into bankruptcy, with a second COVID-19 wave likely following the first.
- steve_adams_86 6y agoYeah - wow, I can't tell if I admire the entrepreneurial spirit or pity these people for taking such a blatant risk. Numbers where I am are hitting record highs (though they were previously relatively low).
- vmception 6y agoThey service low interest debt and a lease price locked in for 10 years Distribution of failure probably won’t be worse than before for new entrepreneurs People with money or access to capital are in a different world than people without
- papito 6y agoThe difference is risk. If I take a risk like that, I end up living with my parents. They just fail and move on to the next failure, or a success.
- vmception 6y agoYep, there is a survivorship bias because they get to try multiple times in quick succession, compared to once every ten years, or just once, or never.
- doopy-loopy2 6y agoIt's over. There will also be no appetite for another lockdown.
- purple-again 6y agoAugmented reality and or virtual reality “game consoles”. If I had a spare billion or three laying around I would buy up some nice spacious commercial real estate in all of the metro areas of the US. Construct the piping and glue to present a uniform framework for every single one of those locations. Think for now a single 20x20 square room, something achievable regardless of whether it was an old Best Buy or an old grocery store. These locations become your PlayStation or game console. You need your own killer content like Zelda or something to get off the ground, but once you can offer development tools that offer access to such a large audience, the entrepreneurs will come and start building content for you. You provide a set number of props like staircases, blocks, etc that can be arranged into a specific game rooms layout and then painted by the developers game giving you much more room than just a big open area to work with. There are some really good POC’s out there, but it’s just a single location like a laser tag place servicing a single area. That’s not enough to build a critical mass of developers or players.
- aphextron 6y agoThis has been the dream since consumer VR took off 5 years ago. It never materialized because it turns out people just don't care that much. The tech is impressive, but it simply isn't good enough to be compelling beyond the first 10 minutes of wow factor for most people. VR will remain a niche within a niche until the hardware is truly ready for the mainstream, which will require feather light fully wireless headsets with 100% FOV, depth perception, and perfect controller-free hand/pose tracking.
- ecshafer 6y agoI have seen vr arcades similar to this, but only in super high traffic tourist areas. Orlando and Vegas both have places you can rent a vr booth. But I think you really need some place you can charge a lot and have a huge amount of potential customers constantly.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI think you are on to something with that. I gave the Occulus experience a try at the World Trade terminal (both the Star Wars and Avengers experience) and it really felt like a type of interactive cinematic experience. We were given guns, the wind would blow in our face when we looked out of the helicopter, walked around the corridors, etc. The whole space looked like it might have been 1200 square feet.
- Ericson2314 6y agoWell in NYC I hope it finally means have space to keep the god damn trash off the sidewalk.