
The Electronics Store of the Future and Grand St. - inmygarage
http://amandapeyton.com/blog/2012/10/the-electronics-store-of-the-future-and-grand-st/
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bduerst
The Sharper Image tried this, along with Radioshack and arguably Best Buy, but
with the advent of the internet each was forced into their own market niche.

Best Buy and Radio Shack now cater to the late adopters target market,
specifically those who do not shop online very often or need something
immediately (hence economic hold up with the Monster Cables). The Sharper
Image ditched it's brick and mortar locations and is purely an online store
for "cool" gadgets.

If you're going to ride the wave of a "hardware revolution", I would look at
what a fledging hardware developer needs to get their next successful good off
the ground and cater to that, even if Kickstarter already exists in this
space. Creating a BnM store just isn't the best way to reach the early adopter
target market anymore.

Or, you could go for the regional 3D printer business model that people have
been talking about but nobody has implemented yet. Try and help product
developers rapid prototype their electronics.

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chrischen
I feel a brick and mortar store is essential to trying out any new gadgets and
toys, but then the store would just lose customers to online.

So how about a physical store that charges an admission fee?

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bduerst
Only if it is event-based, otherwise you will have a hard time getting people
through the door. If it's just a normal store, then it becomes a "Pay to demo
items you would still have to buy". That's a little too focused on "How to we
monetize?" before you even have customers.

If you are _really_ set on a BnM store, focus on the phenomena of customers
trying or touching goods in the store, and then looking up that same good on
their phones to purchase online at best price.

For Example:

Your store could host a variety of gadgets, and the digital price tag shows
the best Amazon price. Customers then touch and try the item, and if they want
to make a purchase, they scan a QR code or NFC sticker with the purchase URL.
That URL then contains your referral code, and you get paid through Amazon if
the customer makes a purchase. Replace Amazon with any other online retailer
that allows affiliates.

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chrischen
Well if you're charging a for the entry you can probably use that to pay for
store upkeep, and keep actual prices competitive with whatever is online.
You'd also save on shipping.

If I'm in the store touching something I want to buy _right now_ , that seems
to be a perfect opportunity to capitalize on me. Doesn't make sense to send me
online.

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stephengillie
Price and specs are very important. So are a good website, fast shipping,
clear communication about order status, security (CC data), and
warranty/customer support. Newegg has historically had a very good combination
of these, as have many other successful hardware sellers.

Also important are what we _don't_ want: spam, deceptive webpages that try to
trick users, spammy emails, an unclear or difficult website, survey spam,
byzantine RMA policies, limited shipping choices (USPS parcel vs UPS ground is
not good enough), customer service people who can't speak/type local languages
clearly.

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aashay
To piggyback a bit on the "no spammy emails" idea, one of the most irritating
parts of the experience of buying electronics on Amazon is the slew of "new
recommendations for you" type emails I get. They are almost always filled with
products that are similar (or in some cases exactly the same) to what I just
bought.

Where's the logic in that? If I just made a decision to buy a pair of great
headphones, why spam me telling me about other great headphones that I might
want too?

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lallouz
Serious laughs. I once bought a ping-pong table on Amazon and received
recommendations for other ping-pong tables from them for months. I think
that's what happens when you let robots take over all core competencies of
your business. :)

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MiguelHudnandez
I think it is a great engine for books. "You like books about ping pong?
HERE'S A DIFFERENT ONE!"

It's one of those cases where the formula doesn't really work when you expand
the scope of a project to handle different cases. Scope creep strikes again.

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morizzle
This seems like a space that is just waiting to get occupied by some
entrepreneurial wizardry. There is a huge gap in terms of where to discover
and buy relatively nascent technology; a hole somewhere between graduated
Kickstarter projects and Best Buy. Where do these somewhat untested vendors go
to hawk their novel products? Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc certainly wont be
selling items that are just trying to break into the market yet show a great
deal of promise. Grand St seems like they're on to something here...

~~~
stephengillie
There certainly is a space for an organization which handles the production
and distribution for hardware hackers. Grand St could let a maker upload an
idea, put up a page, and attract people kickstarter-style. Once people start
ordering, Grand St would automatically start manufacturing the items and
shipping them.

They'd need to purchase manufacturing hardware, lease space, pay employees to
manufacture and ship these, so Grand St would take a percent of the profits,
but this could easily be a non-profit organization.

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kunle
Probably as important as a physical store is developing a customer base of
early adopters, tinkerers and modders who will support/modify/bugtest/buy
early hardware projects. Whether you reach them via a store/site or events
(annual/monthly/quarterly) is less important, than for a hardware startup with
a new product to know that YOU are the place to go to launch the product/find
beta testers etc.

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daurnimator
What is Grand St?

As in, is it actually going to be a store? on a 'grand street' somewhere?

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grayrest
As someone who works on Grand St (at least the one in soho Manhattan) I
assumed it was local since this is the south end of the Manhattan startup
cluster.

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ogillile
I wouldnt be surprised if it was actually grand street in brooklyn. It is in
nyc though, says so in the bio.

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malandrew
Why not try the Warby Parker approach where you mail people trial versions of
3-5 gadgets at a time?

This lets you avoid all the the B&M problems.

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microtherion
I’m looking forward to checking this out once it’s out of beta, but for now,
I’m pretty happy with SparkFun and Tindie, and I can see what they’re selling
without handing out my e-mail address.

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CletusTSJY
You might think we've all moved on from price being important because everyone
you've talked to has a lot of money. But there are plenty of hardware nerds
who are also price conscious.

