Cardinal Biggles, poke the prisoner with the stuffed cushions
TCS: Tech Central Station - The Comfy-Chair Revolution
When I first saw "The Comfy-Chair Revolution" as a phrase out of context, Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch sprang to mind. Then I clicked and Glenn Reynolds was actually talking about how stores are starting to encourage people to stay there and spend some of their life there as opposed to thinking that the function of people in stores should be reserved to shopping. Most interesting.
So, now the question is, if Old Navy opened a coffeehouse or pizza counter and living room, would I spend more time there and money there that isn't related to clothing and traditional Old Navy merch? (shrug) I dunno. We'll just have to see.
(The one foray I have had into working for a retail clothing store, Structure, now known as Express Men, actually had a rug and group of chairs and coffee table outside the fitting rooms. It's on Boylston Street in Boston. I don't know if they still have it. We'd have employee meetings there. I thought its primary purpose was to be a place for women to wait while [young] men tried on clothes, but maybe hanging out was encouraged. The thing is you don't think the proprietors of a clothing store would want people hanging around who were not buying something.)
Then again, as soon as somebody spilled a mocha on something before it was sold, or got pizza juice on it, there would go that idea, wouldn't it?
I don't know. How many books are ruined at Borders by people spilling their food? Is it that people take unsold, new books into the cafe, buy a coffee, and then read without buying the books? Do they ruin the books with food? Do they take them into the bathrooms (like that Seinfeld episode)? Maybe I should investigate with marketing folks.
Labels: Originally published
... Scribbled by Bill T ... 7/11/2004 11:36:00 AM ... 
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