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Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

bbc.com

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Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#31

Post by pjc50 »

bloak wrote: post #10
close04 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually looks like it costs a bit. I wonder if they get a good return on the investment. Would more people decide to buy into the RPi ecosystem because they walked into the store as opposed to reading about it all over the internet or talking to friends? It's a running cost so it has to bring a steady flow of income to pay for itself. Hard to do in a relatively niche market with a good product that depreciates…

Perhaps they got a special deal on a short (sub)lease. It would be interesting to know which shop they replaced, or whether they have taken over a space that had been empty for some time. They are not yet mentioned on the Grand Arcade web site, but I've taken a copy of their current site map so that I can do the comparison in due course.

The shopping centre is owned by USS, the universities pension scheme; I don't know if that counts for something in terms of being able to get discounted leases.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#35

Post by jdietrich »

close04 wrote: post #7
samwhiteUK wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I'm not sure. People who are curious about RasPi already know what it is, and people who wander in to the store wondering what it is are not THAT likely to pick one up. If it hasn't cost them much to do, then great, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. New models already all sell out immediately

That actually looks like it costs a bit. I wonder if they get a good return on the investment. Would more people decide to buy into the RPi ecosystem because they walked into the store as opposed to reading about it all over the internet or talking to friends? It's a running cost so it has to bring a steady flow of income to pay for itself. Hard to do in a relatively niche market with a good product that depreciates…

Malls and shopping centres are really struggling, as they are in the US. If you're a mall with a number of vacant units, you may be more than willing to lease a unit to an interesting business at a cheap rate; an empty unit earns you nothing and makes the overall retail experience less attractive.

Raspberry Pi is the kind of product that could really benefit from a quality retail experience. I suspect there are a lot of parents who might have heard of Raspberry Pi, but don't really know what it's all about and don't have the confidence to buy a kit and try it out with their kids. If you've sold someone a Raspberry Pi and given them good advice on how to use it, you're substantially more likely to go on to sell them a robot kit or a 3d printer or a bunch of Adafruit goodies.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#36

Post by ProblemFactory »

close04 wrote: post #7
samwhiteUK wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I'm not sure. People who are curious about RasPi already know what it is, and people who wander in to the store wondering what it is are not THAT likely to pick one up. If it hasn't cost them much to do, then great, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. New models already all sell out immediately

That actually looks like it costs a bit. I wonder if they get a good return on the investment. Would more people decide to buy into the RPi ecosystem because they walked into the store as opposed to reading about it all over the internet or talking to friends? It's a running cost so it has to bring a steady flow of income to pay for itself. Hard to do in a relatively niche market with a good product that depreciates…

> I wonder if they get a good return on the investment.

On just sales income it seems doubtful.

But in the end the Raspberry Pi Foundation is a non-profit whose goal is to get kids interested in programming, and give them the hardware they can experiment on without worrying about breaking your parents' or school computer. Sales to "hackers" is just a side business.

An event space / showroom can help with that mission for kids and parents who might not buy online and get started on their own.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#38

Post by Already__Taken »

I Hope it's more of games workshop type affair. You're just not going to have useful staff that know about this equipment long term operating a shop floor. You can barely get anyone that knows much about a phone beyond the box from phone specialists.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#39

Post by chrisseaton »

cabalamat wrote: post #33
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

When did the British start calling shops ‘stores’?

The retail chain British Home Stores was founded in 1928, so at least since then. I wasn't aware until now that this is considered an Americanism.

British Home Stores was founded by Americans! That's why it's called a 'store'.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#40

Post by rpns »

chrisseaton wrote: post #16

When did the British start calling shops ‘stores’?

Traditionally (in the UK), it was reserved for large, varied shops like department stores. However, the American usage to mean any shop has certainly been spreading in business-speak for a fair while.

From the OED (the entry has not been updated recently):

> Chiefly N. Amer. and elsewhere outside the U.K. In early use, a shop on a large scale, and dealing in a great variety of articles (see quot. 18082). Now, equivalent to the British use of shop n. 3.

> The use of the word in this sense has not become common in the U.K. except in Comb., as chain store n. at chain n. Compounds 3, department store n. at department n. 5 (see under the first elements), store detective n. at Compounds 1d(a), in which it still refers to a large shop.

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