What Do Nassau Street, The Strand, Rue Drouot, Bourses, And Ebay All Have In Common?

I got the idea for this new thread based on a previous thread on "The Art of Marketing a stamp shop."

https://goscf.com/t/55289&SearchTer...f,stamp,shop

I liked the photo shown of Max Stern's in Australia. Kind of hard to miss what they do for a living and no stamps damaged by light. It's unfortunate that in today's world a brick and mortar location can essentially only serve as a place to work. To survive most sales need to be online and mail order.

There has been much discussion in SCF about the old days of Nassau Street and places like The Strand and Rue Drouot in Paris. Desirable for the collector to be near many resources at the same time. To me, online sales like ebay, Nassau Street, districts like the Strand and Rue Drout, and bourses all have a common thread. And this common thread might be the only way brick and mortar philately might survive.

What is this common thread? Availability of many resources close together. Stamp shops may indeed compete with one another, but the competition in theory helps them all survive if the potential buyers see the competition as beneficial to their collecting needs.

Think about it. The 2 main reasons ebay is popular is ease of access and abundance of material to choose from. But there are numerous shortcomings inherent in not being able to see the materials before buying. The ebay concept is the same concept as Nassau Street, Rue Drouot, and bourses. We are all willing to travel to bourses and "philatelic districts" if we know there is going to be a lot to see and the more there is to see, the more we are motivated to visit.

So how might brick and mortar manifest in the future of philately? Well, it may not. But there may be a way, and I propose the way is to return to Nassau Street. I'll call it Nassau Street, circa 21st century or NSc21. It would take some dedication and a very motivated, visionary, and well-heeled benefactor to get it off the ground. The model I would use for this is the Antique Mall, but with walls. Collectors enjoy Antique Malls because … well, because of ease of access and abundance of material to choose from! Sound familiar? Same concept as Nassau Street. Despite the internet, Antique Malls thrive, and they do so with multiple small sellers. Perhaps this model could be applied to Stamp Shops as well, if we adjust our thinking somewhat.


So what would this look like? Here's how I see it:


• NSc21 should be located in a larger metropolitan area, preferably very near mass transportation
• Likewise, NSc21 should be located where there is a good deal of daytime foot traffic, e.g. an area with office buildings or company campuses
• NSc21 would be stronger if it included other hobby businesses, e.g. coin dealers, comics, ball cards, antiques, etc. There would have to be at least 10 stamp dealers, I would think
• A stamp and/or coin auction business as an anchor would be valuable to the owner
• Spaces offered should be quite variable from a few hundred square feet to thousands of square feet to attract various sizes of sellers
• The owner does not necessarily need to buy a building. NSc21 can be located on a few floors (or even 1) of a building, preferably an older building searching for a new identity
• The owner must have a plan in place to generate income from as many non-lease-related opportunities as possible. Revenue from rent may not be enough
• Sellers must be committed to a multi-venue approach to their businesses to include local traffic, internet, mail order, etc. to ensure the best odds of making money
• Since sellers may not wish to be in their offices every day, there should be perhaps one day per week or certain days in a month when all sellers commit to being in their offices as an incentive for buyers to make the trip
• Ideally there would be a bourse space that would allow for weekend bourses in the different collecting areas
• At least one seller should be committed to educational programs to get kids interested in stamps. This could include outreach to schools, club formation, and a venue for class or parent/child education within NSc21
• Marketing emphasis must be consistent around the value proposition- NSc21 has the excitement of many buying opportunities in one place (like ebay) with the added benefit of first seeing what you buy (like bourses) and the opportunity to discuss, teach, and learn philately with other sellers and buyers (can't do this live on the internet)

Is this schema workable? Quite possibly not, who knows. I may have missed any number of important ideas and details when thinking about this. But if there is a future for "brick and mortar philately," I personally believe this concept, or some version of it, may be the only way. Who's up for launching the first one?


Imagine something like this (maybe with some walls ) filled with stamp dealers:

I get you.Something like this building with 20 different dealers?
http://hawaiianislandstampandcoin.com/

Harbin in north east China has a stamp exchange that is physically what Shermae describes. It has about 50 dealers in a space measuring about 75 feet by 150 or 25m by 50m location is up a broad flight of stairs about 15 minutes from the main downtown tourist area. The booths all sell coins and notes. Most stalls, but not all sell both. There were very few stamps that were not mint uncirculated. Less than 1 in 3 stalls sold used stamps. The used stamps were usually stuck with hinges into a scruffy old ledger. Some of the ledgers had only PRC stamps. The dealers all had thick piles of mint uncirculated miniature sheets. Collecting stamps and money were both seen as serious investments just like stocks and shares. I saw what appeared to be newspapers with the latest values of each sheet and coin. There were very few customers present mid morning during mid week when I visited in late March 2016. I am almost inclined to say I and my friend and interpreter were the only customers. The exchange was obviously a fixture with glass counters and safes at every stall, not a temporary sale.
I did not see this as the future of stamp collecting. I suspect that within ten years stamps will not be viewed as good investments in China and all the Chinese people who buy year collections of mainland Chinese stamps will no longer bother about stamps, and the Harbin exchange will be history.

Even antique malls fail as it's a hard business, but I've comes across a few stamps dealers who have booths at antique malls (Coxsackie, NY - AZUSA Stamps). Postcard dealers are far more common. Some have high overhead costs that drive dealers away (Camelot of Bennington, Vermont comes to mind). Some dealers have the same overpriced stock year after year to the point it's a dis-jointed museum. Many are located in the boonies, but do get traffic via tourists (the big one in Quechee, Vermont for example). Shoplifting is a bigger problem for dealers, and sometimes those who are left in charge know little to knowing about the wares the dealer is selling. Whoever is running the mall would also have to police dealers to make sure they are not peddling off reproductions and fakes. Some antique malls do that, but not many. Stores also have limited hours - ebay never closes unless the computer systems foul up.

In all, there's too many costs and risks for a dealer to sell via an antique mall and the returns would most likely be paltry compared to ebay or a stamp show. Stamps, covers and postcards can definitely be found at antique stores. Most are grossly overpriced and/or just junk, but occasionally a really nice item can be found if you hunt long enough.

Sorry, but you are running counter to the trend that brick and mortar stores are fading away. Even the ones not closing stores by the dozens have rather flat sales today. Shopping centers were built and were once successes because shoppers didn't want or need to go "downtown". Today, there's a lot of dead or nearly-dead shopping centers now.

You are also ignoring the bear in the room. That is, all the bourses and stamp shows with bourses that already exist. Your fixed site with 10 dealers must compete with 25-100 dealers available in one spot. Granted the latter events may be only twice a year in a given locale, but in others, if you are willing to do a little travelling, there's one every weekend. And those dealers already have their clientele. Who's now going to be your customer and what are you offering that those other dealers are not?

This idea of a dealer collective site was already done in Manhattan (New York City!) and failed badly. It was always dead and hardly any dealer was ever there, being on the road either to buy material or sell at a major stamp show. That shows you the level of business needed to make a living, though I'm sure most of those dealers would have been happy to forego the travelling and expenses IF a brick-and-mortar store could provide a living.

There is a major problem with brick and mortar stores that also do shows. You can always buy supplies or basic US stamps at the store, but the bulk of the stamp stock is elsewhere on many weekends or is traveling to or from a show.

On one of my trips to Tokyo, I stumbled across a small stamp shop among the antique shops in Asakusa, but the next time I went looking for it, I couldn't find it. There are a few shops that sell stamps in Nakano Broadway, a four-story mall that caters to collectors of all sorts, but none of them sell philatelic material exclusively; there are also coins and/or telephone cards in the mix.

Japan Post sometimes has booths near local attractions, offering recent issues to the tourist crowd. I bought two sheetlets of Peanuts stamps near one of the temples in Kyoto.

I saw an outdoor stamp market when I was in Valencia, Spain, in 2011. Unfortunately, I was with a group tour at the time, and the market was no longer running when I had a chance to return.