221–230 of 276 posts
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>Toy stores are a _great_ example of opportunity for brick and mortar. Just like book stores, they operate in a space where curation, discovery and the physical experience adds real value. Not anymore. Customers just use them as a free showroom and then buy it cheaper off Amazon.
>>Customers just use them as a free showroom And that free showroom is now gone. All the best buying something on Amazon, and realizing that you didn't like it after it was delivered at your home. The cost of treating it as a free showroom will now cost customers buying a lot of products they don't like.
Meanwhile, it's not like you can really test a toy in a store, and returning it means another trip.
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Toy stores are a _great_ example of opportunity for brick and mortar. Just like book stores, they operate in a space where curation, discovery and the physical experience adds real value. The town I grew up in has a great independent toy store, and I make it a point to shop there every time we're in town. Every time I find something unique that I would have never looked for on Amazon, and often I'm hooked by the tact…
I think the place brick and mortar seems to do well is where the store adds value over just selling merch. You go to Home Depot for expertise as much as for parts. You go to a local boardgame store for recommendations and events. You go to a toy store to get your hands on them and leverage staff expertise and curated inventory. The only big problem with this approach is showrooming. Toys r us or best buy carry bad pr…
I may be in the minority for now, but I doubt they can live off that kind of 15m "consultations" when people are willing to do it for free online.
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> I like to think I never do this, but if the price is much higher even I have a limit. Really? You rationalize going to a brick and mortar international franchise simply because it is physical, instead of going to an online international franchise? Thats the biggest stretch of "buy local" that I've ever been exposed to.
OP is talking about a small toy store, but regardless - an international franchise that has a location in your home town employs people from your home town, whereas Amazon (for the sake of argument in this case) does not. That's the core argument of 'buy local'.
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I think so too, but I wonder about the long term effect that doing everything in the virtual world will have on abilities in the physical world. It's extremely anecdotal, but my little brother, who almost exclusively plays Minecraft, seems to have a fantastic imagination but very poor fine motor skills. He has trouble doing anything physical that requires not using a keyboard and mouse.
I feel like there's a point far into the future where they might consider the current technology age as a turning point in our evolution as biological beings. Consider a future 1000 years from now, after we've spent a thousand years interacting with the virtual world. Imagine a world where the virtual is indistinguishable from the physical - where the virtual IS physical, and the physical IS virtual. Virtual worlds t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Toy stores are a _great_ example of opportunity for brick and mortar. Just like book stores, they operate in a space where curation, discovery and the physical experience adds real value. Not anymore. Customers just use them as a free showroom and then buy it cheaper off Amazon.
No way. The high-quality wooden hand-crafted toys at good mom & pop toy stores are not available on Amazon. Discoverability of good intellectually stimulating toys is similarly poor on Amazon. You also overestimate the delta between the Amazon price (if the product is carried by Amazon) and that of the brick & mortar price. Often the brick & mortar price is identical after shipping costs. The competitive advantage of…
When we are looking at the generic market, nowadays people go to a store, look at something and then go on their phone to see if they'll find it cheaper anywhere else, as local stores tend to overprice stuff to make up their marginal costs.
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>>Customers just use them as a free showroom And that free showroom is now gone. All the best buying something on Amazon, and realizing that you didn't like it after it was delivered at your home. The cost of treating it as a free showroom will now cost customers buying a lot of products they don't like.
Cost customers? Amazon has free returns, and sometimes they even refund you and let you keep the item. Meanwhile, it's not like you can really test a toy in a store, and returning it means another trip.
If most users start doing returns, they won't be free or even possible, given how much logistical nightmare that will be.
Beyond all this, that turn around time to buy a single product will be high.
Stores offer a good middle ground, and you can get a good hold of things before you actually make a purchase. I'm not saying toy purchase or any other purchase online will go down, but there will be a lot of buying will be waste.
It really is unfortunate that stores I grew up with as a kid, ones like KB Toys, Montgomery Wards, Service Merchandise, Blockbuster, Kmart/Sears, and now even Toys"R"Us have gone by the wayside for one reason or another. It both depresses me and blows my mind that future generations may not even be able to experience Brick and Mortar.
Do we really want our kids to enjoy fluorescent-lit warehouses full of cheap crap that will be thrown away a couple months after it's bought?
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>>Customers just use them as a free showroom And that free showroom is now gone. All the best buying something on Amazon, and realizing that you didn't like it after it was delivered at your home. The cost of treating it as a free showroom will now cost customers buying a lot of products they don't like.
Cost customers? Amazon has free returns, and sometimes they even refund you and let you keep the item. Meanwhile, it's not like you can really test a toy in a store, and returning it means another trip.
I doubt this is true for anywhere but North America.
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>Toy stores are a _great_ example of opportunity for brick and mortar. Just like book stores, they operate in a space where curation, discovery and the physical experience adds real value. Not anymore. Customers just use them as a free showroom and then buy it cheaper off Amazon.
No way. The high-quality wooden hand-crafted toys at good mom & pop toy stores are not available on Amazon. Discoverability of good intellectually stimulating toys is similarly poor on Amazon. You also overestimate the delta between the Amazon price (if the product is carried by Amazon) and that of the brick & mortar price. Often the brick & mortar price is identical after shipping costs. The competitive advantage of…
I think their main advantage is not the curation but the availability. You can plan a trip to the toy shop, agree to a budget, go and play with toys, choose something in budget, and go home with a toy. This is a way better parent-child bonding experience than scrolling through pages of licensed junk together & then waiting 2-3 days.
Re curation: most good toy stores have the same sort of stuff. Most 'boutique' 'niche' ones have expensive crap for idiots with money. Protip: your kids will play with toys until they break, don't buy that miniature replica Miele vacuum cleaner toy for $200 unless you don't mind throwing it away in 3 months.
Museum shops seem to follow the 'specialized, curated selection of unique merchandise' of children's toys.