The End of “Location, Location, Location”?

No, I’m not talking about the end of location-based apps. However, other apps like Foursquare see their market share eroded by other apps that add geolocation as a feature – location is not really rocket science. It’s funny what people consider hot for a while. But I digress.

No, I was talking about the old real estate trope: name the three most important property attributes? Location, location, location! Well, I’m foreseeing the end of that.

For example, remember how it used to be really dumb for anyone to locate a business off the beaten track – if it was impossible to find your business, it was impossible to be successful. Well, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t first go to yelp before deciding where to eat, which led me to the restaurant, no matter how obscure the location. In fact, I found an amazing African place hidden in the middle of a housing development in San Jose, and I would never have found it without Yelp, Google Maps, and my Galaxy S3.

Not just for business – but with the advances in telecommuting, we can literally live practically anywhere in the world as long as we can communicate with our colleagues or customers. If the internet is there, most of us can work there.

So when it comes to business, location, location is rapidly no longer becoming a factor. As long as your customers can find you online, you can be successful, no matter where you are – therefore, you can locate your business in a much lower rent location. Now on the flip side, you still have to factor in your customers’ desirability to want to travel to you. But the whole physical requirement of foot traffic is not essential.

Case in point: a prospect seeking you out because of excellent social media reviews would much rather travel to you than your competitors who may be closer. Your social media presence then becomes your virtual storefront. If you pick this strategy, social media-wise, you must go all out to draw people to you.

For example, my wife was contacted by a store owner who wanted to present her wares in her store. The store was in an obscure location in the middle of downtown San Jose, in a repurposed building. She had rented a small room in this building and had opened a shop in this room. If it weren’t for Yelp, Google Maps, and a sandwich board chalk sign at the front of the building, we never would have found it. But I guess that she will be successful because she is leveraging social media as her storefront.

Food for thought for those of you who are thinking of starting a retail location: do you really need to put it in high traffic, high-cost spot? Maybe not anymore.