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Google Is Poised To Open Its First Permanent Retail Store (adage.com)

Google is planning to open a 14,000 square-foot retail store in Chicago's Fulton Market district, according to local media reports from Crain's Chicago Business and Chicago Tribune. While Google has opened pop-up stores in the past, this would be its first permanent location. Ad Age reports: In 2015, Google abandoned plans to open a store in New York City, after spending $6 million renovating the 131 Greene St. location, Crain's New York Business reported at the time. The Chicago store would give Google a bricks-and-mortar location to show off its expanding line of products, including Pixel phones, Daydream VR headsets, Nest products and more. The location Google is eyeing in Chicago is just a few blocks from Google's Midwest headquarters. The Fulton Market neighborhood, part of Chicago's West Loop, is formerly a meatpacking district. It has been transformed in recent years and is now home to some of Chicago's hottest restaurants. The report notes that there's still a future in brick-and-mortar locations, citing Amazon's interest in Whole Foods and the fact that retail stores have been a key part of Apple's strategy. Microsoft operates stores in 35 states.

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Apple by MrL0G1C · · Score: 2

    This is my favourite Apple story today.

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  2. Which will be in Beta for 5 yrs, then close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Which will be in Beta for 5 yrs, then close.

  3. the hook is in online integration by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Informative

    The hook for brick and mortar now is in online integration.

    It's nice to have someplace you can return the stuff you got online, without having to ship it back. It's nice to have a showroom for certain items. Someplace to get service. Faster, cheaper, or both shipping if you order and then come and pick it up.

    1. Re:the hook is in online integration by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      It's nice to have someplace you can return the stuff you got online

      This is a mistake for Google, a company which prides itself on having absolutely no human customer interaction what so ever.

  4. Re:What'd they sell? by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 3, Funny

    internet search results, carefully printed on glossy paper and binded in a luxury edition.

  5. The Ugly Secret of the Internet Industry by alternative_right · · Score: 2

    they are now forced to find ways to diversify their income base

    I think you may have it backward: their business model does not work, which is why they turned toward SJW/PC as an audience. Ads have failed as the basis for funding large internet companies, although they could be enough to keep internet infrastructure going. Search engine technology has not been mysterious for some years, and so people expect it to be like a utility, always there.

    For Google to survive, it would need to cut back to a handful of engineers and run its search engine as a service and charge actually realistic prices for its ads, which would be a tenth or less of what it is charging now. Internet ads are not as effective as television ads or even print ads. The industry has been attempting to hide this knowledge but it is slowly becoming common knowledge.

    The same is true of social media. On paper, they have a huge audience and so they should be doing great; inside the companies, people realize that they are in real trouble.

    If I were these companies, I would fire most of their staff, close the expensive headquarters, and focus on becoming a hedge fund.

  6. Re:Desperation? by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Chromebooks are awesome if you have kids or if you are the de facto IT person in your family. Support consists only of fixing hardware failures and resetting forgotten passwords, occasionally disabling a rude extension. Beats the shit out of spending a full day cleaning up Windows.

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