Swiss running brand On recently opened up a new flagship store in NYC's NoHo district. It was designed by the Swedish architect and designer Andreas Bozarth Fornell (whose firm is called Specific Generic), and I think it's a good example of the whole push toward "experiential retail." Before Zappos there was a belief that nobody was prepared to buy shoes online. Surely shoes are something that you need to try on to make sure that they fit properly. But then Zappos and Tony Hsieh came along and decided to offer free returns so that you could just order a few different sizes to try on at home and return the ones that don't fit. And then just like magic, we're now living in a world where I myself couldn't tell you the last time I bought a pair of shoes offline.
What is obvious at this point is that people will buy pretty much anything online -- everything from boats and real estate to shoes and tires -- and so, in many cases, the physical retail experience needs to be exactly that -- an experience. Something special. What On has done with their flagship store in NYC is try and create a space that, among other things, tells their brand story, acts as a hub for the local running community, and offers up a unique technological experience that is likely pretty difficult to replicate online. One of the key features is a "magic wall" that analyses your technique and scans your feet as you run past it (pictured below). The invisible foot scanner is supposed to help you find the perfect shoe size, accurate to within 1.25mm.
If you're a serious runner, I could imagine this being a pretty appealing in-store experience. (And if you're not a runner, I guess you could just take a selfie in front of the magic wall. People seem to like pink walls). Whatever the case may be, I think On has done a great job trying to rethink the retail experience around its brand story and philosophy. But it leads me to a bunch of questions. Which brands and/or products are suitable for a new retail experience? (Does toilet paper, for example, want a new high-tech warehouse space in NoHo?) Assuming we continue down this path toward experiences, does this ultimately lead to less retail space per capita? Probably. And if we're destined for less space, what does that ultimately mean for the ground floor experience of our cities? What should these spaces become? How does street life evolve?
Cities aren't going anywhere. But change is inevitable.
Images: On
The Financial Times is running a series right now on the future of the City of London. In their latest article, they looked at "How London grew into a financial powerhouse," while at the same time comparing it to other global financial centers. It's interesting to see how much of a banner year this was for companies going public. Companies listing on the Nasdaq and the NYSE raised a record $150 billion in 2020. This is compared to about $6 billion raised in London (both the London Stock Exchange and AIM). But what I really want to draw your attention to are the below maps from FT showing the clustering of banks, hedge funds, asset managers, insurers, and professional services firms in London. This is what urban agglomeration economies look like.
Airbnb's IPO documents recently went public.
Not surprisingly, their business as a travel company has been heavily impacted by COVID-19. Last year, the platform saw 326.9 million nights and experiences booked, with 251.1 million being booked in the first nine months of 2019. This year, nights and experiences are down to 146.9 million for this same nine month period. Revenue is correspondingly down from $3.7 billion for the first nine months of 2019, to $2.5 billion for the first nine months of this year.
But what is also clear from their data is that people still really want to travel and have new experiences. As soon as April passed and the Northern Hemisphere entered the normally busy Q3 travel season, domestic travel began to quickly ramp back up. For many, this likely took the place of international travel. See above chart.
Of greater concern might be all of the regulation that now surrounds short-term rentals. As of October 2019, about 70% of the platform's top 200 cities (by revenue) had some form of regulation impacting short-term rentals. But at the same time, no one city accounts for more than 2.5% of the platform's revenue. So there's strong geographic diversification.
If you'd like to take a look at the company's S-1, you can do that over here. And for those of you who might be curious, these are Airbnb's top 10 cities based on revenue:
London
New York City
Paris
Los Angeles
Rome
Barcelona
Tokyo
Toronto
San Diego
Lisbon