If you were going to market
a brick and mortar bookshop, where would you start?” – So Josh, first of all,
this is a great question. Second of all, I really appreciate
the love you’ve given me. Obviously you put Thank
You Economy in one of your, your Instagram’s tremendous. Obviously the question
was posted, so if you guys could catch his name or slow
it down, go back and watch it, go check out his Instagram. I think your Instagram is really tight. I’ve always said that
marketing doesn’t fix your shit product. Now after being such a
great guy, you’re like, crap, where’s he going with this? Being a bookstore in the
traditional sense of the word is over, right? There’s something called
Amazon, it’s chipping away, it’s just starting. Let me say that one more
time because I think people are confused.
It’s just starting. The corrosion of people going
to bricks and mortar for books has been on like Donkey
Kong, in an iPad, Kindle, and Amazon world. I think if I was to buy 17
bookstores at a bankruptcy, and I had to do it, what I
would do is I would turn them into a live events space
where bookselling was the secondary aspect of it. I would turn it into a coffee
shop, I would turn it into a coworking space, I would
turn it into an events spot. I would turn the physical,
and the fun part is, guys, and this is a little preview,
I’m getting my hands into Wine Library a little bit,
Wine Library’s second floor that has a lot of square
footage, I’m about to turn into an events space. I’m eating my own dogfood on this one. I would say the content you’re
putting out on the ‘Gram, and I didn’t have time to
look at everything else you’re doing, is really strong. But as you can imagine, is that
going to make somebody want to buy a book from you,
for 30 to 70 percent more? Yeah, hippies like India, show her. She would do that, right? But that is a very, no, loving
books is one thing, India. Going and spending 70 percent
more, I can see you, because I know you a little bit, maybe
doing that once in a while. Actually, do you buy
your books from Amazon? – No, I buy my books from
Alexander book company. Yay! Shameless plug! – You know. (laughs) I think that there are some
hipsters out there, but they’re not going to drive your
bottom line, right? That’s the anomaly, not the standard. I’ve done this show for a little
while now, and I would say that India and Staphon’s
head nodding as I was giving that answer was a really good
indication that we’re barking up the right tree here. I would sell 30 to 50 percent
less books to clear up the square footage, within
the store, no matter how big you are, 100 square
feet, 1000 square feet, 5000 square feet, to really
activate the physical location and find other ways and
means to make dollars, because I think bookselling
within a bricks and mortar needs to be the secondary
income, not the first play. I think that’s something
people need to wrap their head around. By the way, real quick,
don’t finish the editing. That is pretty much my
theory on retail, period. Multi use, events, experiential, McDonalds, a lot of people talking about McDonalds. I think they need to triple
down on the playground thesis, right? I mean, I don’t know. People have got to realize,
retail’s in a very new place. – Just leaving this
message because you wanted

should brick and mortar
stores be paying attention to over the next 12 to 18 months?” – Joe, that’s a great question. You know, for me a lot of
people have been talking about the second screen
situation with television. People watching TV with their phone. And the funny part is they refer to this as the second screen. I think we’re about,
probably about there now, but this is very much the first screen and that’s the second screen. And we’ll get into that
on a different show. That was kind of a little gateway drug for somebody if they
want to get on the show. That would be a good question to ask. The trend in retail for me is kind of now the second
screen shopping opportunity. What I mean by that is, this, your eyes, are the first screen, what you’re actually looking at. But think about this. One of things that caught
my mind a few months ago was I was in a supermarket
and I watched somebody go from one aisle to the other, and the whole time, she was. Sorry, DRock. She was shopping and she was doing this and she went around the, sorry, India, and she went around the end cap. Now, look, brands pay a crap-load of money to get those end caps, or to have to have the hottest
product in the world going. But usually at big
stores, big supermarkets, big-box stores, they’re
paying for that positioning ’cause it’s the best position
in the store, those end caps. And so the second screen
shopping opportunity is really, really fascinating to me. Geolocated. Beacons in the store. You’re in the store,
you’re shopping about. You’re getting messaging. I mean, there’s a lot of people who don’t want to be
annoyed on their phone, but I’m sure plenty of people, when they’re in Best
Buy or Target or Costco or Albertsons or Wal-Mart, wouldn’t mind getting a quick
little text or notification, or, if they’re in their Twitter stream, they’re using that
geolocated data to understand to push a tweet. You’re in Wal-Mart; you
get a tweet from Wal-Mart that’s telling you there’s this deal and if you click this
button, scan it, Apple Pay. Second screen shopping opportunities. One of the big things I’m
thinking about for Wine Library is I’m kind of getting a little
flirty with the wine world. more and more. I’m kind of inching back in slow. Steve loves it. Show Steve’s happiness of a face. As I’m inching and
thinking more about wine, I’m starting to rethink about the store and the thought of walking
in and getting content and paying for wines across
the board at the store at a lower price if you
have the app at register. Just, second screen
shopping is a very big deal.

So I co-founded a company called Shimmer and we’re just building
a whole bunch of assets around social media and filter space. – Okay – So as you know, you work with the space, it’s really raw. – Yep! – So, what do you think the
biggest opportunities are there currently untapped? – In social media influencers? – Yeah, like, obviously
there’s brand agencies, there’s events. All that stuff, where do
you think like the next you know, like the next big
thing can be in the space? – I’m gonna go over arch again. I know we already had
an influencer question, so I like how this is working … We’re you, like holy
crap he asked way too .. We’re you pissed? Yeah. – That’s not cool. That’s why I gotta go first. To me this is the biggest thing that people don’t understand about the influencer space. Not only do influencers create content, they create distribution. So for the first time ever, in one entity, you get both things that people want. You know, if you think about television production companies or
movies, Steven Spielberg. But then you need distribution, right. So what I would say is, the biggest opportunities for these guys, for you, for me, for everybody’s that ‘s
playing in the space, is to recognize that unique principle in today’s internet world where they actually can drive two things. And then apply them. The other place that I think
there’s a huge opportunity, to answer you question, to give everybody more
information, go a little deeper as I’ve been trying to go, is product. I think that the infomercial space, the leveraging of like, you know of like celebrity into product. I at one point could have easily sold tens of thousands of glassware sets because of my wine influence. I think retail and
product, call it QVC 3.0 is another place that
people need to think about. – Okay.
– Thanks brother. – Appreciate it, Gary.
– Good luck to you, stay well. Next, let’s go.