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Off Brand
Retailers Are Now Making Stores A Lot More Like the Internet
A new startup is working with department stores to give them a ‘third wave’ retail boost
Even with Black Friday looming, there’s not a lot of holiday thrill emanating from the traditional retail sector these days. The liquidation of Barneys is just the latest plot point in what’s become a very familiar story: department stores and big-box chains suffer as shoppers (especially younger ones) do more and more of their buying online. We’re deep into the age of e-commerce now, and the shopping excitement all seems to be digital.
And yet… surely it’s too soon to write off physical retail completely. Online sales still account for only about 10% of retail transactions. Maybe there’s hope yet for putting a bit more pizzazz back in analog shopping.
“A brand can learn that 100 people walked into the space, 20 spent some time looking at your product, five actually demoed it and, and three converted and bought it.”
Among those betting on, and trying to enable, this outcome is a startup called b8ta. In short, it’s luring innovative, digital-first brands into physical, legacy retail spaces, partly by deploying technology that offers consumer analytics that have been hard to collect in the real world.
I’ll explain b8ta’s business strategy momentarily. But first, to get a sense of how this all shakes out for a typical shopper, I paid a visit to Macy’s flagship Herald Square store in Manhattan — they are a b8ta investor.
On the first floor, a b8ta-branded space displayed tech and tech-adjacent products like Quip toothbrushes, Eone watches, and Common Fibers wallets. I lingered to watch shoppers paw and sample the merchandise — including one woman who tested a Theragun G3Pro for the better part of three minutes. In the mezzanine, The Market @ Macy’s — a b8ta partnership involving dedicated space within a dozen Macy’s locations, showcasing new and established fashion and design brands — was filled with offerings from “next-gen female entrepreneurs” backed by SoGal Ventures, which bills itself as “the first…
