I can’t understand how slow companies have been to adapt to Apple’s ( $AAPL ) continued domination of retail.
Yes Nike ( $NKE ) has great retail, but not exactly places I can access easily and that’s a brand I could associate with all day with my lifestyle. Starbucks is ok and Whole Foods is doing it because that’s their job, so they don’t count and I don’t want to hang out with those brands. No offense.
I have written about this before but here are the brands that need to embrace experience and turn the virtual world into the physical world
1. Google – Simple Genius Bars that just embrace local merchants to spend all their spare time in.
2. Facebook – Why they have not purchased Meetups and taken Facebook to the physical world is to me lazy thinking.
3. Kayak – If they don’t have the nuts to do it themseles than get with Google and take space in their stores.
4. Intuit – Their should be Mint Stores in thousands of towns and cities across the united states. Banking is the last thing on people’s minds…personal finance and small and medium sized businesses need a fresh, comfortable and contemporary learning experience.
Who else could dominate…Please chime in…
Well let’s take a step back and question why “Banking is the last thing on people’s minds…personal finance and small and medium sized businesses need a fresh, comfortable and contemporary learning experience.”
Even going into a TD Bank (nee Commerce), which I generally consider among the least-terrible banks to go to/deal with, is still a less-than-pleasant experience. Incumbent banking players have re-decorated/re-branded in recent years but they still, in my opinion, are completely missing the point. When other services are adopting a more client-centric mindset, slapping lipstick on a pig isn’t going to get it done. I know some banks have plans to change this, but there’s so much internal bureaucracy and employee turnover, I’m not exactly holding my breath.
That being said, guess that’s where Mint could capitalize if the existing players are going to continue to consider customer service as a cost center instead of a competitive advantage…
its all about teaching people how to spend and manage money first…deposits
and atms are a commodity
Howard,
How about Stock Twits or tradestation having shops where traders can come in and learn how to trade with certified ST teachers everyday thus making it a fun trading hangout. I have a lot I could expand on this if your interested would love to tell you all about it. you can email me @ charto911 at gmail
Zynga: buy an actual farm. What a concept
hilrious but noit for me.
An Intuit store would be right up there with the Microsoft store. LOL… Virtual has great margins why screw it up with real world costs…
What about a Cisco Human Network store? They have already have Flip video in the consumer space, but a retail location allowing users to touch, feel and experience their latest and greatest telepresence technology couldn’t be a bad thing for them.
nah. they are never going to figure out consumer.
Etsy should open up retail stores that feature the best of the best. It would make for a fun and funky shopping experience. Hipsters and would-be hipsters would eat it up.
Another option would be for a company like Urban Outfitters Inc to buy them. Imagine Esty goodies in Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People…
Amazon should have a place where I can drop off all these darn boxes.
I like the Google idea – even if the big G wouldn’t do it, a “Social Media Store” franchise would be interesting. Very experience oriented, like the Apple stores, “Genius” bar and small merchants can learn about Google, SEM, SEO, social media, Groupon, you name it. Setup accounts for them or help them formulate ads or campaigns and book it all through an affiliate code – so essentially the “Genius” bar part is free for the customer. Serve fancy coffee, free wifi, comfortable chairs, seminars on internet marketing… I like it.
I agree
CEO of StockTwits.com and founder of Socialleveragellc.com
You forgot to mention the StockTwits Experience Store. It should have an animatronic Howard Lindzon that speaks whatever the real Howard Lindzon tweets, in real time. A mock StockTwits.TV studio, where visitors can pretend to have their own show on StockTwits.tv (sort of how CNN HQ lets visitors on the tour pretend to be anchors).
On the shelves, StockTwits-branded merch from select companies in the StockTwits 50 (e.g., $LULU yoga gear w/a StockTwits logo on it?), interspersed with little bronze statues of Howard Lindzon. At the registers, customers would be able to buy special Pez dispensers configured to dispense Ambiens.
we have been working on one for chicago.
citi is testing an apple store concept for finance in asia and europe. They’ll fail but the writing is on the wall. It all goes back to the concept you and I talked about. A family office for the rest of us.
stocktwits store with an advisor section….