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- Feb 10, 2010
Most Niketown's normally have a pretty big square yardage. The one in SF was 3 levels, each as big and sprawling as the floors at the one in Miami. And, yes, the paid parking was ridiculous. They definitely should have given you at least the first hour for free. And, that staff was useless anyway. Holier than thou types. Wonder if they're still better than us now that they no longer work for NT.Originally Posted by Skip2MyLou23
The Niketown would have worked if the space wasn't so big. The rent and the staffing must have killed them. Also, it sucked to pay for parking there.Originally Posted by Remedial
Well, since my inquiries on which stores had RSVP and whether EB had a restock fell upon deaf ears, I'd like to comment on the Niketown closings. Living in Miami where ours just closed, my belief is that it wasn't feasible to keep that location open because the traffic is almost nil on days not associated with a special release. That coupled with the fact that the sneaker game is dominated by folks searching solely for special drops, the cost of leasing a space and paying an entire staff to basically babysit a store until the next major drop is futile.
I've always thought a better business model would have been to have constant restocks of the special releases (in small amounts, of course) while integrating a NikeID studio in every location to satisfy that niche market. The restocks would keep heads constantly coming through to check for what's gotten replenished this week and the NikeID would definitely be a boon. Then, just round out the locations with services geared towards runners, which I'm sure is the next tier of their customerbase. Treadmills for testing shoes, devices for determining the best shoe for each customer, etc...
I know some of us would frown on the constant restock model I mentioned, but, honestly, I think that Nike's own forced exclusivity and shortened supply is hurting the company and the buyer. When you know you have to compete with cats who are trying to get 5-10 pairs of a shoe to resell and you can't even get one, either you're going to work harder, pay outrageous reseller prices or quit. I'm sure most folks just quit, as I have at times in the past. With this model, even if you go into NT and don't find the particular sneaker you're dying to have, you might luck up on something else that you may have missed or could use another pair of, thus reinforcing brand allegiance and customer confidence.
With those changes, they'd start having the kind of traffic that you want and then the only other thing would be to train staff so that customers feel welcome and not like the staff is doing them a favor by helping them (which I'm sure we've all experienced) and getting the aforementioned traffic to buy something. Akin to a car salesman asking what it would take for him to get you into a car today.