Google opened its first retail store in the trendy Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.
Google has done pop-up retail stores in the past, and they even considered opening a store on a barge in San Francisco Bay. But this is their first traditional, long-term retail location.
The timing is interesting in that it makes clear that Google thinks traditional retail is coming back post-pandemic.
It's also interesting because Google is in many ways the ultimate Internet brand. So Google following other online brands in opening a retail store shows that hybrid commerce continues to be the preferred path.
According to Fast Company's Google's First Retail Store is the Anti-Apple, Google's store:
"... ends up feeling more like an interactive museum or an exploratorium than a retail store. There’s a wall featuring every single product within the Nest family, with the name of the object underneath, like you might see at a natural history museum. In the middle, there’s furniture designed to mimic a particular room of the house, from the children’s playroom to the kitchen, interspersed with Google hardware. And along the windows, there are 18 “discovery boxes” featuring 3D animations that tell stories about a particular Google product, like the recycled materials that go into the Nest speakers."
Apple, of course, has a highly successful retail chain. But Microsoft was less successful with their retail store effort. Last year they announced they would close all 116 of their stores.
So the jury is out as to whether or not Google's experiential retail concept will work.
But Google going into retail shows that while ecommerce continues to grow, even the most ecommercy firms see a future in traditional retail.
