The Physical Store Renaissance
The Physical Store Renaissance
As brands open new doors downtown, what should come first - creating experiences and building community or the good old customer service and keeping their shelves stocked?
It had been raining in New York for days before I stopped making fun of dudes dripped in gorpcore and started playing with the idea of getting a pair of rain boots for fall. With the Pinterest image of princess Diana in a bright pink sweater and tall Hunter rain boots, I whipped out my laptop and started my search for a perfect pair. It turns out, years later, Hunter still dominates the rain boot market or, at the very least, has a really good SEO manager. But even when my choices were narrowed down to one brand, it turns out Hunter makes eighty different variations of rain boots. The reviews were a mixed bag of country girls loving the chic look of an everyday essential and city girls complaining about the boots giving them blisters and then quietly admitting they wore them with ankle socks. After hours of browsing and going back and forth between the tall and short versions of the boots, I decided I had to see them in store. Surely some place in New York City has them in store?
The closest I got to seeing my rain boots in person was Soho Bloomingdale's. Out of eighty versions of boots listed online, the department store had three in stock in the least versatile colors imaginable: bright pink, green and gold. No short boots, all three were tall. My decision paralysis was going through the roof. I really wanted the short ones because I felt like the tall ones could be heavy. But I imagined the short ones could look ugly on my feet. Am I supposed to tuck my pants in? Then short ones would be the obvious choice. But if I tuck in, doesn’t the water get inside through the huge space between the pants and the boot? There was no way the three tall boots in wild colors were going to solve my decision paralysis. It was then and there that I decided that I should probably just suck it up and get through a couple more rainy days in sneakers and leather ankle boots.
I know there is a whole list of reasons why one of the biggest department stores in the biggest city in the country carries only three wild types of rain boots in fall - from the shrinking middle class and the rise of DTC to the post-pandemic supply chain and business ops. I will even go as far as to consider that I might be one of the very few people shopping for rain boots in the city which, considering the recent floods, I’d reframe it as being early on a trend. Dark jokes aside, over the past couple of years I’ve seen some young brands eagerly open physical stores just to quietly close their doors once the lease ran out twelve months later. I’ve seen even more of them flirt with the idea of having a store by hosting pop ups but never committing to a permanent store due to business concerns. Without giving it too much thought, I sort of assumed that the physical store is dead, that it’s an expensive venture that doesn’t pay off as well as social media, ads, and influencer marketing, and that it has to do more with feeding the CEO’s ego than smart business strategy. Yet, in the years following the peak pandemic, new stores opened, people lined up outside, and after spending this summer in Soho and despite not being able to buy a pair of rain boots on a random September afternoon, I slowly realized that stores are very much alive. It’s just that many parts of the store as a concept, including the customers, the business, and the social-economic environment have evolved. Or did they?
When people talk about the latest evolution of retail locations, they cite the playground that is the Apple Store, the Glossier destination stores with regional photo ops, and the Aimé Leon Dore (ALD) stores designed to be a gentlemen’s club with a cafe. Ten years ago consumers were losing their minds over a signature scent and hot sales associates at Abecrombie. These days, the expectations both consumers and businesses place on physical locations are way beyond being a point of sale. There are photo ops to maximize social sharing, cafes, lounge areas, arcades, event calendars, limited collab drops, and security guards that manufacture a line outside. I find stores like the new ALD on Mulberry fascinating in a way that’s like “holly shit that looks expensive.” There is a whole vintage car, a sexy sound room and a rumored country club that’s not open to the public inside. I understand what the business is trying to do and why an average ALD head would find monthly Sound series cool, but if you break out of the brand magic here for a second, isn’t it kinda dorky to spend your Saturday night hanging out at a store? Not your store, not your friend’s store, just like….a store you shop at.
A store doesn’t have to have a branded replica of a subway station or a packed events calendar to be a good store. I think Uniqlo’s Soho flagship is an excellent store. It’s organized, it’s got a million mirrors and the narrow spaces between the shelves make up a lot of private corners that make for impromptu fitting rooms. The only things I buy there are sweaters and jackets, so I don’t even know where the fitting rooms are - I’ve been just shoving my belongings in the corner and trying stuff on. I think Warby Parker’s store is an excellent store because a couple of months ago a sales associate patiently watched me try on every frame they make and when I said “I think this pair looks more expensive on me” she carefully asked if that’s a good thing. Ganni store in Williamsburg forever has my heart because last year when I was shopping for a birthday dress while not in the best mental space, a sales associate offered to pull some stuff for me after watching me unsuccessfully try a couple that I picked out myself. I felt like a princess. But the Ganni store in Soho sucks even though design-wise it’s the same exact store. The vibes are just different.
I find it interesting that many brands that start with products today want to make their way into physical spaces and experiences in order to cultivate community and make some sort of broader cultural impact. Imagine if Harvard started as a brand that puts their logo on sweatsuit blanks, then held biweekly evening lectures at the back of the store and worked their way up to opening a school. Sounds ridiculous but that’s what Sporty & Rich is shooting to do by slowly building out a wellness center in their Soho sweatsuit store. Harvard sweatsuits suck by the way and I am not sure how much additional brand recognition it brings to the school because I’ve never met a Harvard graduate who missed an opportunity to mention they went there. While there might be some community element in a Harvard sweatshirt to the consumer, I am sure to Harvard it’s mainly a revenue stream (The Harvard Shop made $18M in revenue in 2022).
I also find it interesting that once brands that pioneered the whole community and destination store concepts, like Glossier, one day go corporate, they spend more money than ever on events, stores and product launches (they are going on a country-wide campus tour?), they are actually losing the community early Glossier worked so hard to cultivate by changing formulas and getting rid of beloved products. I’d be really curious to see their numbers after Sephora and worldwide shipping expansion and pouring what seems like unlimited amount of money into marketing this year because even though their IG is full of upset early fans comments about the new formulas, their shelves at Sephora look like someone robbed them because of how many sold out products are missing.
I’ve been on the West Coast these past few weeks and I’ve been making pretty much daily trips to Erewhon because believe it or not it’s just the closest grocery store to my place in Venice. Besides getting an occasional smoothie and warming up to the hot bar food, it’s also a fascinating place to watch operations-wise. As I stare at the dessert fringe for a good couple of minutes making calorie tradeoffs in my head, at least two employees pause to tidy up the flourless chocolate cakes and the overnight oats as they walk by. The workers restocking other shelves acknowledge the customers around them, wish us good morning and carefully step aside, almost making themselves invisible, if they happen to be in someone’s way. Like at Disneyland, they work diligently to create and maintain the organic foods magic. I notice once DTC Blue Land, Vacation Inc, and Salt and Stone on the shelves. I spend the next ten minutes going back and forth between all Salt and Stone deodorants and after months of resisting their influencer marketing because I know I need aluminum in my armpits, I couldn’t resist how good they smell and decided to gamble and buy one. I went home and texted my friend “It’s embarrassing how much I love this store. It seems like such a good business model. Why hasn’t anyone done this earlier? Oh I guess Whole Foods did and then sold out to Amazon.”
Why hasn’t anyone done…an organic grocery store? I rolled my eyes at myself when I read those messages back to myself. Because despite the celebrity smoothies, hot bar food TikTok frenzy, $12 juices in pretty glass bottles, really expensive merch and credit card-esque annual memberships, at its core that’s what Erewhon store is. No vintage cars, no photo ops, no sound room. Just a store with neat shelves where I’ve spent way too much money in the past couple of weeks on things I needed much less than rain boots this fall.