The Google Barge and the Future of Mobile Retail

The Google barge makes me ponder the real possibilities for mobile corporate retail. Such a mobile retail outlet can be to the brick-and-mortar store as the food truck is to the brick-and-mortar restaurant. The food truck industry has proven there are real benefits to this model. These benefits are transferable across any consumer industry.

Source: http://www.365-la.com/

Mobility, convenience, unique customer experience, and limitless selection through on-demand ordering are the dynamics that hold sway. It is these dynamics that have already driven the “big box” to its last breath through online retail. The Best Buys of the world are shrinking their footprints. If and when they add new stores, the stores are much smaller. In fact, today’s Best Buy is more likely to be an in-line tenant at the shopping mall rather than the anchor of old. So small is sustainable; small is convenient; small fits the market. Even Wal-Mart has taken notice with their “neighborhood” stores.

So imagine a world where the next major retail destination is actually a moving target. Not a road show, per se, but a nomadic space that sets up in surprising places for brief periods of time. Grabbing attention, drawing lively crowds, moving units, then moving on.

Or maybe it is more formal. Maybe these shifting, moving storefronts occupy a brick-and-mortar building for a month at a time, giving themselves the ultimate optionality. They can rent for a month in a formal space and if traffic slows or the customers move elsewhere, simply pull up the stakes and follow to the next spot. No more legging out a ten-year lease in a dying area where you face the potential of a bad neighbor next to your pristine store.

In some places, these stores could simply locate for the holiday shopping season and leave.

I find a fluid city of these shifting destinations to be wildly exciting. The model allows us to get around the conflict of permanent storefronts built to catch fidgety, flighty consumer trends. That current model simply carries too many costs. We can point to countless empty big boxes as the detritus of corporations following the traffic and trend of the day. Those soulless shells become dead zones. We look back on them and wonder if they were ever worth having.

Smaller, mobile retail bypasses these risks. This model also outmaneuvers our latest repackaging of the big box which we call “lifestyle centers”. I actually like these centers but they are still vulnerable. They are not built on decent courtyards and right-sized parking. They are built on long-term leases. And when those leases end in 2027, I suspect all we will have left is a lot of very nice flea markets (i.e., the original mobile retail).

But here’s another benefit: mobile corporate retail can bring the customer experience to the customer. What if the next specialty retailer, like a Lego store, brought itself to a smaller city for a three-week visit? Rather than requiring those residents to drive countless miles and hours to arrive at the mall, the mall would essentially come to them with on-demand orders and product demos. The customer saves money and time, the retailer saves (again) on leases, storage, and more.