Slashdot Mirror
Raspberry Pi Gets Its Own Brick-and-Mortar Retail Store (venturebeat.com)
The Raspberry Pi, believe it or not, now has its very own retail store. From a report: Located on the first floor of the Grand Arcade in Cambridge, U.K., the Raspberry Pi Store is open through the day, every day, and sells everything from Raspberry Pi microcomputers and accessories, to branded coffee mugs, soft toys, and more. [...] Despite its popularity -- more than 19 million Raspberry Pi units have been sold since 2012 -- the Raspberry Pi still feels a little niche to merit its own dedicated retail store. Indeed, most people who would be interested in building their own electronic gadgets from scratch are likely well-versed in the wonders of online retail. But conversely, that is likely the same reason why the Raspberry Pi Foundation wants its own space in the physical retail realm: it needs a new audience.
And much like the USB design of the Raspberry PI, there will be multiple entrances to the building which will then funnel all traffic through a single door.
Huh, you'd think a Raspberry Pi store would come without walls or a roof.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
No thanks.
If you want to get kids into electronics and programming then you have to keep costs low. Parents aren't going to shell out hundreds of dollars for the latest hobby of the week.
Parents aren't going to pay the markup, and people who are serious about the hobby know they can buy direct from China and get the same parts.
Unless you need a part this second, there's no need to buy parts at a local retailer.
Mouser and DigiKey have been around for decades with their mail order and now on-line business.
Raspberry PI would be smarter to team up with local maker spaces to provide common parts to makers where they go to work at a price that doesn't go much above wholesale costs.
Work Safe Porn
Takes a lot of guts to open a store that only sells one flavor of pie. I hope it works out for them.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
the Raspberry Pi still feels a little niche to merit its own dedicated retail store.
Its in Cambridge.
To translate that for viewers in the USA its like saying... well, come to think about it, its like saying "Its in Cambridge" (copycats!).
It will have access to a slightly different customer demographic than your typical Radio Shack on a strip mall somewhere that doesn't have the students and professors from a top-tier university, the employees and families of ARM inc. and a dozen other tech companies passing by on their way back from the bookshop - is what I'm saying.
People can add it to the tourist trail between the alma mater of Newton and Hawking and the pub where Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry had a punch-up.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Despite its popularity -- more than 19 million Raspberry Pi units have been sold since 2012 -- the Raspberry Pi still feels a little niche to merit its own dedicated retail store.
That is true, there are only two kinds of people in the world, those that own no Raspberry PIs, and those that own several dozen Pis - so that puts the maximal user base at well under 1 million world-wide. Now, conveniently, all those Raspberry Pi owners are clustered in high-density first-world cities, so this was an obvious next step for the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Ken