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Updated: 5/6/04; 9:28:38 AM. |
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Updated: 5/6/04; 9:28:38 AM. |
| Superelastic Iconoclastic Spanning the globe... to bring you a constant variety of lucidity  Saturday, September 6, 2003"Let's say the store is called, oh, Samuel's."
[James Lileks] I would live at a store like this. I favor Target too, solely because it remains possible for two carts to pass side-by-side in the aisle of one (try that in a WalMart). But it's all really the same generic crap unloaded from the same Chinese freighter in the Port of Los Angeles. There are only so many different ways to cram the same crap into a 150,000 square foot space. Presentation and atmosphere do make a difference (so do sufficient/efficient sales staff, but retailers have been missing that point for decades, so I'll not flog it here). As the choices in discount retail have withered and pasteurized, I've become strangely nostalgic for shopping amid the sounds of buzzing neon and hand-lettered sales signs. So why not make "Samuel's" a business plan... bring back the look of a Grant's City and meld it with the hipness of Ikea. And make sure it honors Top Value stamps.
But James... why go with "faux" 50's facades, bro? There are plenty of empty big boxes lying around waiting to be repurposed. Instead of retrofitting, a little Lestoil and a little elbow grease would turn even the dingiest dead Zayre, Korvette's or Woolco into a "Samuel's." And there'd be plenty of parking... Oh wait... the Zayres, Korvettes and Woolcos were turned into Ameses, Caldors and Bradlees, so you'd have to pry off the newly dead facades to get to the older stuff. Fortunately, there are samples and styling cues to help create the new-old "Samuels" experience.
One could argue against starting new retail ventures in locations where prior efforts have failed. Remember, the magical "Samuel's" wouldn't have the customer service issues that were central to killing off all those other stores. I've also noticed that, long after the anchor stores have departed, the last tenants to leave a ghost mall are Radio Shack, a random Chinese food purveyor, and an outpost of a state agency such as the RMV. Including one of each of these in a "Samuel's" would assure its tenacity. 4:03:54 PM Googlism I've been wasting some time with this... a search engine that pulls random nonsense phrases out of Google searches and displays them for your amusement. An interesting way to determine what the Web thinks about something. For a sample, I asked it what it thought about Springfield. The folks over at News 40 should be happy... springfield massachusetts is wggb springfield massachusetts is a family owned and operated machinery dealer springfield massachusetts is charged with selling heroin and cocaine in vermont springfield massachusetts is as easy as filling in the blanks
It hasn't anything to say about me. 12:52:10 PM
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