Soullessness Always Shows

A good bookshop is a genteel black hole.

― Terry Pratchett

Only once did I ever step foot into an Amazon bookshop.

I visited the one in Washington, DC, and fled after five minutes.

The shelves' contents revealed a company without spirit.

Good bookshops, as Terry Pratchett observed, lure customers to dwell—for hours on end. To book-bathe and sip coffee while communing in the presence of genteel minds.

A soulless bookshop, on the other hand, repels customers. 

Its offerings and atmosphere signal that the owners do not read and that they wouldn't know Camus from Kanye.

So it comes as no surprise that Amazon has decided to close its 68 bookshops.

The business lesson here is fundamental.

An offering with no soul is an offering bound to fail.

No amount of slick store décor can disguise an absence of Geist.

How about your business?

Does it have no soul?

It's Never Too Late

When I make a cup of coffee I change the world.

― Jean-Paul Sartre

The smart money's on Starbucks: its stock, which bolsters the leading hedge-fund portfolios, returned nearly 19% this month, despite a global drop in same-store sales.

But, I'm sorry, I've had it with Starbucks. Not the stock. The store.

I just paid $3 for a single cup of drip coffee―only a buck less than the price I pay for a whole pound of ground at Safeway (the equivalent of 27 cups of brew).  

Coffee is my water, as singer Becky G says; and though many Americans will gladly fork over three bills for a bottle of water, I won't pay that for a cup of coffee―not even a cup of kopi luwak, the coffee made from civet doodie.

I guess I'll be making my own coffee now. It's still the cheapest way―and has been for a century. A home-brewed cup in 1920 cost only 24 cents (adjusted for inflation). Today it costs a drop less―just 18 cents.

The sad thing is, I used to love Starbucks. 

I'd spend hours of my time there, even though the chairs were tippy and the stores looped the same Bob Marley record over and over again. I sat drinking coffee and reading philosophy books, yakking with fellow caffeine addicts about movies and politics, and writing marketing copy (my sole source of income for years).

But at some point the romance forsook our marriage.

The reasons escape me. 

Were I to consult Dr. Phil, I'm sure he'd say it was my fault our marriage turned ugly (or as he'd put it, "It's because of you your marriage looks like the dogs keep it under the porch").

And he'd be right. I demeaned Starbucks, complaining when the bathrooms hadn't been cleaned. I hid expenditures for restaurants, clothes, and movie tickets. I was neglectful. And I had a wandering eye: more than once I fantasized about visiting Peet's.

But Dr. Phil would be quick also to point out that marriage is a proverbial "two-way street" and at least some of the blame for the chill in our relationship falls on Starbucks.

Starbucks was simply too needy. It begrudged me for sitting hours on end with my nose in a book. It turned angry over the the fact that I ignored important chores, like taking out the garbage. And it resented that we never went anywhere.

But it's never too late to remove the strains on our marriage, Dr. Phil would add. 

Starbucks and I could still sit down and reach an understanding about what we each need, what we each deserve, and what we can realistically give one another. 

Starbucks only needs to affirm that our commitment and loyalty to each other are deep.

And drop the price of a Grande Drip.

Shoes

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

― Marilyn Monroe

Fashion footwear―boots, shoes, sandals and slippers―no longer captures the bulk of consumer spending in the category, according to retail analysts. 

"Athleisure"―sneakers, flats, slip-ons and flip-flops―has walked off with it.

The reasons for the shift lie deep in women's psyches. 

I suspect they're taking over the world, and need the proper gear.

But who knows where this will end?

Will women acquire even more pairs of shoes?

The average American female, surveys show, already owns 17 pairs of fashion shoes; and many own three times that number.

How many pairs of world-dominion footwear will they buy?

Psychologists, of course, have puzzled for more than a century over women's shoe-fetish. 

Sigmund Freud thought shoes symbolized vaginas; and feet, penises. So for Freud, trying on shoes was a sex act. 

Jacques Lacan thought buying shoes represented an act of domestic defiance. You're proving to yourself you're a master, not a slave. (If you're old enough, you'll remember Nancy Sinatra's hit song.)

Psychologists today are more apt to point to the physical "high" that buying shoes triggers.

Trying on shoes releases a flood of dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin; and paying for them tickles the part of the prefrontal cortex psychologists call our "collecting spot."

But I think the mystique assigned to women's footwear is overblown. 

Most women, if you asked them, would say that buying lots of shoes is simply practical. 

Like belts and purses, shoes are a cheap way to stay abreast of fashion trends without replacing your whole wardrobe every year.

Which leads me to Vincent van Gogh...

A Pair of Shoes by Vincent van Gogh

In the year 1886, Vincent bought a pair of old shoes at a flea market in Montmartre and took them home to use as prop.

That prop turned into one of of art history's most renowned paintings.

Philosophers in particular have celebrated "A Pair of Shoes."

In "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1935), the Existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger―who exalted German peasants―claimed Vincent's painting was the very embodiment of the peasant's fate: food insecurity, ceaseless poverty, over-size families, and premature death.

The shoes, Heidegger wrote, are "pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending child-bed, and shivering at the surrounding menace of death."

Heidegger's interpretation came under fire 30 years later in "The Still Life as a Personal Object" (1968), by the philosopher Meyer Schapiro.

Schapiro―a Marxist who exalted the urban poor―claimed that "A Pair of Shoes" didn't depict a peasant's shoes at all. 

It depicted the artist's own shoes.

Vincent always painted peasants' shoes in a "clear, unworn shape," Shapiro wrote, because (like Heidegger) he believed peasants were noble. 

But Vincent depicted his own shoes as rumpled and ratty, because―down and out in Paris―he was rumpled and ratty.

Shoes don't star only in paintings, however. 

They star in countless fairy tales, story books and motion pictures, as well. 

Just think of all the plots that feature shoes: Cinderella, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Puss in Boots, The Red Shoes, The Wizard of Oz, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Devil Wears Prada, Kinky Boots, Barefoot in the Park, Forrest Gump, Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Get Smart, to name but a few.

That's a lot of shoes!

Hiking Boots by Bob James

Trade Shows Take the Art World by Storm

Unless brick-and-mortar galleries make a comeback, you may buy your first Basquiat at a trade show, says The Art Newspaper.

Brick-and-mortar galleries once guaranteed collector confidence, but no longer.

Today, collectors are accustomed to buying art at trade shows, on line, and directly from the artists, making a dealer's "home base" irrelevant.

Art Basel, king of the art show organizers, still insists dealers operate a gallery to qualify to exhibit.

As global director Marc Spiegler told The Art Newspaper, running a brick-and-mortar gallery signals you're a "real" dealer.

“Paying rent, staging shows and employing people simply represents a higher level of commitment to the artists the galleries are working with and to the cultural landscape of the cities in which they are sited,” he said.

But the rule is under scrutiny; and the pressure's on to drop it.

Most of the other 270 trade shows allow dealers without fixed abodes―dealers who only sell art on line, or through coops, popups, or trade shows―to exhibit.

Only Art Basel excludes them.

And the stakes are high. Last year, 41% of dealers' sales took place at trade shows.

Dealers are loving them.

Another reason dealers are loving trade shows: they enable collaboration.

They can rent adjacent booths and commingle the works of a single artist or school.

Hungry collectors can see many related works displayed together―maybe even go on a buying spree.

HAT TIP: Appraiser Todd Sigety pointed me to this story in The Art Newspaper.

Brits Battle to Conquer Black Friday

Until recently in the UK, Black Friday referred exclusively to the Friday before Christmas, when everyone boozed until blacking out.

That changed in 2016, when a UK-based subsidiary of Walmart tried to import the Yanks' version of Black Friday.

It didn't quite take.

Brits' brick-and-mortar shopping on Black Friday has proven so tepid traditional retailers like John Lewis, Primark, Oasis, and Argos have downplayed the yearly shop-a-thon, or bagged it altogether (ASDA since 2016 went out of business).

The winners of the UK's version Black Friday?

Amazon and Alibaba.

To compete with these online giants, UK retailers need to get serious about web selling, says digital marketer Simon Williams. He urges them to:

• Prepare their websites for a bevy of shoppers
• Identify the most profitable social platforms and use them to promote discounts
• Make videos a key part of social content
• Create a dedicated hashtag, and
• Simplify the online buying process

Lack of preparedness is costly, Williams notes. Last year, John Lewis lost £75,000 in online sales when its website crashed for 60 seconds.

BLACK FRIDAY BONUS: Check out Simon Williams' extraordinary infographic, The Winners and Losers in the Battle of Black Friday.

Over. Not Over.

Why buy sunglasses at Walmart when there's Warby Parker?

Metrosexuals' buying habits mean retail giants are “overstored,” says The Washington Post.

Retail space, which mushroomed before the Great Recession, is growing at a pace slower than that of the US population, while retailers like Macy's and Jos. A. Bank shutter stores left and right.

But closing stores isn't the same as closing shop:

• Walmart, for example, will close 269 stores this year; but it will also open 300 new stores; and spend billions on a new e-commerce operation. 

• Williams-Sonoma and other specialty chains will aim for a "sweet spot" of around 250 stores, while drawing more sales from e-com. 

• Chains like Burlington Coat Factory will chop not the number, but the size, of their stores, packing "the entire assortment in a smaller box." 

• Staples will repurpose its real estate by adding shared office spaces to stores. 

• Sears will sublet space to Nordstrom Rack and Dick’s Sporting Goods. 

As retail giants abandon shopping centers, nontraditional tenants like restaurants, gyms and health clinics will fill the space, according to analysts. 

European retailers will also begin to appear on the scene in large numbers.

HAT TIP: Michael Hatch led me to the Post article.