Google sets up shop

111 Eighth Avenue, NYC. © Google.

On Thursday, Google announced this summer’s New York opening of its first bricks-and-mortar store. Located in the Art Deco building at 111 8th Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, it will showcase and sell a wide range of Google products: Pixel phones, Nest smart home devices, Fitbit trackers, Pixelbooks, and more. Customers will be able to order items from Google’s online store and pick them up at the new address. Like an Apple Store, the new Google Store will demonstrate how Google products work together, provide expert services to help customers resolve issues, and offer hands-on workshops to get the most out of Google products and services. The company has already experimented with selling its hardware in small pop-up shops and stalls in distribution stores like Best Buy, but today’s announcement marks a bigger commitment to retail, which will probably expand depending on the success of the Chelsea store. In any case, may Google meet with more success than Microsoft, which closed its 83 stores in June of last year.

⇨ The Verge, Chaim Gartenberg, “Google is opening its first physical retail store this summer in NYC.”

2021-05-20