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This article was originally published in the Robin Report, Community Retail At Scale

It’s Not Just Good, It’s Good For Business

No one can argue with the benefits of scale when it comes to retail. Large-scale retailers provide deeper assortments at lower prices than their ma-and-pa competitors. But there’s a problem with all this scaling up. Mass-scale stores have become divorced from the communities where they sit. Most big-box retail stores look like they have been dropped in place by the mothership, and show little connection to where they are. All retail should have a sense of place. Now that we’re used to all those benefits of scale, customers yearn again for the relationships they had with their stores when they were owned and operated by their neighbors. Prediction: the next big wave in brick-and-mortar retail will combine the power of scale with the benefits of old-school mom-and-pop retail relationships. This is the transformation of big-box stores to come.

Whole Foods Shows the Way

This article was originally published in the Robin Report, Robin Lewis interviews Ed Schlossberg

Robin Lewis: What in the world was Best Buy thinking when they discontinued their Studio D and Escape small store concepts several years ago? You designed these neighborhood boutiques to customize these stores for specific niche demographics and lifestyles. What’s the backstory on this?

Ed Schlossberg: I had this idea in 1998 to do something called a Digital Playground. I thought if these technology companies were going to be successful, they needed to let people play using digital stuff so that they could see what would work. So I made a presentation to Brad Anderson who was CEO of Best Buy, and he said, ‘This is fantastic, we would love to do this.’ He hired us to design the first Digital Playground. It took some time to get it going. When Brad hired James Damien as their visual merchant, he was really excited about it, and we kind of became his team.
RL: What was the design strategy?

Like many tourists from all over the world, I visited Harlem on Easter Sunday. I was looking for Gospel music, but I found something even more exquisite - the co-created call-and-response service at the Harlem Church of Christ. From the first beat of the pastor's sermon, I knew it wasn’t going to be a passive experience. The entire service was filled (in a binary, spoken-word, sung-hymn kind of rhythm) with the a capella singing of psalms, hymns and spirituals. And the choir? From the first time the pastor raised his hands to conduct us from the podium, I realized that we, the congregation, were the choir! You can experience this for yourself any Sunday at the 10 a.m., 1 p.m. or 6 p.m. services, or on alternate Thursday nights at Church of Christ, 480 Lenox Avenue in Harlem.  And as bonus:  Sylvia’s Soul Food is next door.