Last week, I read that Square opened up their first brick-and-mortar store. I found this hilarious. Nothing to do with Square and the showroom, but hilarious because a couple months ago, I had worked on gravity analysis for a hypothetical Square brick-and-mortar store (it was for a Marketing Analytics class I was taking at UC Berkeley Extension at the time).
With that being said, something came to mind when reading the Bloomberg article. It feels a bit odd how online companies are transitioning over to physical stores. I mean, you're cutting overhead by not having a stores right? With all this talk of the "death of brick-and-mortar" retailers and corresponding stocks not doing so well, it's fascinating to think why Square decided to open up this showroom. I guess it goes to show how powerful in-customer experience could be.
On a separate but related note, Amazon recently acquired Whole Foods (for various reasons, not solely for the purpose of experiential marketing). Looks like even online retail behemoths are investing in storefronts. Is brick-and-mortar really dying off then?