November 21, 2005
Wired Magazine Opens a Store in NYC - A Mini Review of Techno Retail, Wired Style
Seminal technology and Net culture magazine Wired has hung out its shingle on an expensive and trés fashionable bit of retail space in Soho, New York City. A major magazine opens a store not, mind you, to sell its magazine, but rather to sell many of the products advertised or written about in its glossy pages. It's an interesting idea. But it's not a totally original one, nor is it the best execution of the one. (For a good example, check the small but always interesting and engaging space that is the Tokion store in the Lower East Side of NYC.)
Wired's store displays and sells many of the latest leading-edge consumer products featured in its flagship mag Wired and in its recent new, even more gadget-centric title Wired TEST mag, which is a very polished and -- let's face it -- magalog for those with unquenchable early-adopter techno-lust.
We visited the store last Firday, and we regret to say it was a dissapointment. Being in Soho, and Wired being Wired, and cool techno gadgets being, well, cool techno gadgets, we expected the store's interior and use of space to be something truly inspiring and fitting. It's not. (For a good example of that look at the Moss store a block away, or, for that matter, just about every other retail space in Soho between Broadway and West Broadway.
The space is "creative," but it feels terribly cramped, poorly lit (despite huge windows), and thrown together in a rush and on a tight budget -- it was as if they blew all the money on the lease, which with Soho's absurdly high rents, could have been substantial. Wired should have just looked at Moss or, say, the Yohji Yamamoto or Apple stores a few blocks away and jut plopped down the merch on display stands -- it would've been a better experience.
On balance, Wired store is a cool, interesting development in itself, and we'll visit the shop again soon to see what they do with it, what they have to offer. But as a retail experience, it fails. To its credit, the collection of phones, laptops, solar-energy backpacks and micro computers really is the latest and greatest stuff, much of which would be hard to find at other retailers.
Admittedly, we being long-time Wired readers and among those early-adopter techno-lusting gadget freaks, our expectations had been much higher. Wired could learn a lot from Apple in regard to retailing.
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Posted by Thurston Ali at November 21, 2005 02:16 AM
