Twenty years ago, Apple opened its first retail store. Now, 20 years later, Google is following in its footsteps.
On Thursday, Google announced that this summer, in New York City, it will open its first-ever retail store, which will be called Google Store. The store will be located under its various offices in the neighborhood of Chelsia, and it will employ more than 11,000 people within the city.
The store will sell many Google items, such as Fitbit devices, Pixelbooks, Nest products, and Pixel phones. The concept is very similar to the Genius Bar of Apple.
Google will employ experts to help them fix a cracked screen, troubleshoot problems, or assist with updates and installations.
This step was influential in the hardware journey in Google’s blog post.
In the blog post, they stated:
“Many customers still want to experience hardware before they buy it — and learn what it feels like, sounds like, and looks like in their hand or on a desk.”
Previously, Google said that its hardware sales were worth millions of dollars. However, Google has kept the sales data for hardware products a secret.
Over the past years, Google opened hardware stores temporarily in cities like London, New York, and Chicago to allow people to view the products working, workshops, and purchases.
Many past Google pop-up locations proved fun and interactive, with doodle walls and a big screen showing Pac-Man.
Google has always relied on many websites and retailers, such as Best Buy and Amazon, to sell its products. However, Apple has had huge success opening its retail stores worldwide, whereas many others have struggled.
Microsoft attempted to create a retail store by creating destination stores where people could check out their services, software, and hardware. However, last summer, it announced that it would be closing all 38 of its stores and concentrating only on selling online.
Google’s permanent location in New York City will be a few blocks from the Apple Store.
How many Physical Google Stores are There?
If you asked me to guess off the top of my head, I’d estimate Google probably has somewhere around 5-10 physical retail stores globally at this stage. I know they opened an awesome big flagship store in NYC a couple years back that got lots of buzz. And I vaguely recall hearing they launched one in LA or San Francisco too.
But considering how enormously successful and powerful Google’s brand is worldwide, it’s kind of surprising they haven’t raced to open more shops yet. I suppose most people still turn to their site and apps to access Google’s amazing array of products and services, even if stores could be cool. Having said that, I could totally picture them down the road opening snazzy, high-tech stores in major cities like London, Tokyo, Sydney etc.
My gut feeling though is that right now, it’s still extremely early days for Google when it comes to physical retail locations around the world. I doubt they have more than 10 permanent, public-facing stores even in major areas globally. Wouldn’t shock me if over time that changes in a huge way and Google stores become nearly as commonplace as Apple and Microsoft. But for 2024, I’d guess they are taking it slow and steady to start!
