- Keep the place clean
- Hire friendly staff
- Make better tacos
- Offer a fun, connected, even memorable experience
Of course you can fail for reasons out of your control, like a bad location or an economic downturn, but for the most part, a strong retail establishment has these taco making ingredients. It would be easy to want to jump to "next tier" thinking, like opening a coffee shop, or diversifying into something unrelated, or opening an online store; questioning the plan. However, it really comes down to cleanliness, friendly staff, solid product options, and that Third Place theory of a fun and memorable experience.
If you're looking at this blog from the outside, you must wonder sometimes what's the big deal? It's a store. There have been merchants selling stuff for thousands of years. Is there anything new under the sun when it comes to retail? You could argue setting up a reasonably good store, as has been done for those thousands of years, is 90% of what it takes to be successful. That's probably true. It's just that other 10% is the difference between success and failure with the Internet pounding at the door. Imagine being the only game store in town, but half of your potential customers have discovered a wizard who will magically make their games appear at their front door. The other 10% of what we talk about is how you combat the wizard, honing those taco making skills.