The Sharper Image tried this, along with Radioshack and arguably Best Buy, but with the advent of the internet each was forced into their own market niche.
Best Buy and Radio Shack now cater to the late adopters target market, specifically those who do not shop online very often or need something immediately (hence economic hold up with the Monster Cables). The Sharper Image ditched it's brick and mortar locations and is purely an online store for "cool" gadgets.
If you're going to ride the wave of a "hardware revolution", I would look at what a fledging hardware developer needs to get their next successful good off the ground and cater to that, even if Kickstarter already exists in this space. Creating a BnM store just isn't the best way to reach the early adopter target market anymore.
Or, you could go for the regional 3D printer business model that people have been talking about but nobody has implemented yet. Try and help product developers rapid prototype their electronics.
Only if it is event-based, otherwise you will have a hard time getting people through the door. If it's just a normal store, then it becomes a "Pay to demo items you would still have to buy". That's a little too focused on "How to we monetize?" before you even have customers.
If you are really set on a BnM store, focus on the phenomena of customers trying or touching goods in the store, and then looking up that same good on their phones to purchase online at best price.
For Example:
Your store could host a variety of gadgets, and the digital price tag shows the best Amazon price. Customers then touch and try the item, and if they want to make a purchase, they scan a QR code or NFC sticker with the purchase URL. That URL then contains your referral code, and you get paid through Amazon if the customer makes a purchase. Replace Amazon with any other online retailer that allows affiliates.
Well if you're charging a for the entry you can probably use that to pay for store upkeep, and keep actual prices competitive with whatever is online. You'd also save on shipping.
If I'm in the store touching something I want to buy right now, that seems to be a perfect opportunity to capitalize on me. Doesn't make sense to send me online.
Trying on shoes is pretty essential to whether or not you want to purchase them. Zappos figured a way around that problem. The only big difference is that many devices are more expensive than shoes.
Price and specs are very important. So are a good website, fast shipping, clear communication about order status, security (CC data), and warranty/customer support. Newegg has historically had a very good combination of these, as have many other successful hardware sellers.
Also important are what we don't want: spam, deceptive webpages that try to trick users, spammy emails, an unclear or difficult website, survey spam, byzantine RMA policies, limited shipping choices (USPS parcel vs UPS ground is not good enough), customer service people who can't speak/type local languages clearly.
To piggyback a bit on the "no spammy emails" idea, one of the most irritating parts of the experience of buying electronics on Amazon is the slew of "new recommendations for you" type emails I get. They are almost always filled with products that are similar (or in some cases exactly the same) to what I just bought.
Where's the logic in that? If I just made a decision to buy a pair of great headphones, why spam me telling me about other great headphones that I might want too?
Serious laughs. I once bought a ping-pong table on Amazon and received recommendations for other ping-pong tables from them for months. I think that's what happens when you let robots take over all core competencies of your business. :)
I think it is a great engine for books. "You like books about ping pong? HERE'S A DIFFERENT ONE!"
It's one of those cases where the formula doesn't really work when you expand the scope of a project to handle different cases. Scope creep strikes again.
This seems like a space that is just waiting to get occupied by some entrepreneurial wizardry. There is a huge gap in terms of where to discover and buy relatively nascent technology; a hole somewhere between graduated Kickstarter projects and Best Buy. Where do these somewhat untested vendors go to hawk their novel products? Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc certainly wont be selling items that are just trying to break into the market yet show a great deal of promise.
Grand St seems like they're on to something here...
There certainly is a space for an organization which handles the production and distribution for hardware hackers. Grand St could let a maker upload an idea, put up a page, and attract people kickstarter-style. Once people start ordering, Grand St would automatically start manufacturing the items and shipping them.
They'd need to purchase manufacturing hardware, lease space, pay employees to manufacture and ship these, so Grand St would take a percent of the profits, but this could easily be a non-profit organization.
Probably as important as a physical store is developing a customer base of early adopters, tinkerers and modders who will support/modify/bugtest/buy early hardware projects. Whether you reach them via a store/site or events (annual/monthly/quarterly) is less important, than for a hardware startup with a new product to know that YOU are the place to go to launch the product/find beta testers etc.
As someone who works on Grand St (at least the one in soho Manhattan) I assumed it was local since this is the south end of the Manhattan startup cluster.
I’m looking forward to checking this out once it’s out of beta, but for now, I’m pretty happy with SparkFun and Tindie, and I can see what they’re selling without handing out my e-mail address.
You might think we've all moved on from price being important because everyone you've talked to has a lot of money. But there are plenty of hardware nerds who are also price conscious.
Best Buy and Radio Shack now cater to the late adopters target market, specifically those who do not shop online very often or need something immediately (hence economic hold up with the Monster Cables). The Sharper Image ditched it's brick and mortar locations and is purely an online store for "cool" gadgets.
If you're going to ride the wave of a "hardware revolution", I would look at what a fledging hardware developer needs to get their next successful good off the ground and cater to that, even if Kickstarter already exists in this space. Creating a BnM store just isn't the best way to reach the early adopter target market anymore.
Or, you could go for the regional 3D printer business model that people have been talking about but nobody has implemented yet. Try and help product developers rapid prototype their electronics.