Facebook uses a Seattle storefront loaded with QR codes to drive offline shoppers to online businesses

Facebook’s “Good Ideas Shop” in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle offers displays and QR codes for a variety of small businesses. (GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

In the heart of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood on Sunday, the streets were full of people visiting a variety of shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the popular Farmers Market. In the city where Amazon’s massive e-commerce operation is located, bricks and mortar seemed to do well getting people outside and offline.

But another tech giant has established itself in the neighborhood. With its own unique focus on e-commerce, small business, a physical store front, and digital marketing, Facebook is trying to attract passers-by on Ballard Avenue Northwest and get them back to surfing – and shopping – on their phones.

The company last week launched its “Good Ideas Shops” in Seattle, New York and Fort Worth, Texas as part of a new US advertising campaign aimed at boosting small businesses during the busiest shopping season of the year. In December, another location will open in Los Angeles specifically for black-owned businesses as part of Facebook’s #BuyBlack Friday initiative.

In Ballard, Facebook created a storefront for 10 different businesses in the Seattle area, each with its own QR code to draw shoppers beyond the storefront to Facebook and Instagram. Small diorama-style boxes with different products from each shop are meant to look like a miniature street scene. There is a cut out skyline and trees; a model car and a bus move on a rail across the entire display. A small sign marks the intersection of Good Street and Ideas Street and everything is open 24/7 – because it’s the internet, after all.

“The Good Ideas Shops campaign shows how Facebook can help small businesses get discovered in their local communities and beyond,” a Facebook representative told GeekWire via email. The out-of-home campaign will be animated, in addition to print advertisements like those run in the Seattle Times on Sunday, with the aim of getting people to visit small business’s Facebook and Instagram stores and shop.

The Ballard Facebook ad lists ten companies in the Seattle area and lists QR codes to activate web pages related to those companies. (GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Facebook didn’t open a real store in Ballard, but it has taken over the window of a former retail location in Patagonia. This store closed in April after four years and has since stood empty on a street that houses a variety of retail stores. Some stores have remained closed since the pandemic and some new ones have moved in.

In a February blog post on the “Good Ideas Deserve To be Found” initiative, Facebook said it was important to put small businesses in the spotlight, as many “are facing the biggest challenge of their lives, and 47% say they are may not survive ”. the next six months. “Facebook identified personalized advertising and digital marketing as the lifeline.

Companies highlighted at the Ballard that did not have to pay for placement included names like Radmor Golf, The Seattle Barkery, Kornerpocket Billiardz, Wunderground and Mylle – makers of “the world’s most beautiful inflatable pools”. ”

A larger display ad for Wunderground, a Seattle coffee company. (GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Wunderground launched its mushroom coffee brand in June. The business is the brainchild of Jody Hall who started at Starbucks when the coffee giant only had 30 stores. Hall is also the founder of Cupcake Royale and the cannabis company Goodship.

Facebook reached out and Wunderground worked with them on branding guidelines and visions, trusting the company to put together the window display.

“We love this way of discovering ourselves,” said Kathleen Tarrant, Wunderground’s Brand Director, to GeekWire. “We found out today that we are one of the most frequently scanned QR codes to date, and that’s incredible.”

The QR code refers to a Wunderground Facebook shop that can be purchased on the Wunderground website. But it won’t be long before physical retailing hits – the Wunderground Cafe opens on Capitol Hill in late October.

Better than an empty room

A small car on a racetrack circling the street scene showing several small businesses in a Facebook storefront in Seattle. (GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

GeekWire was chatting to several people on the street as they passed the site on Sunday. Some slowed down or stopped to absorb everything and find out what it was about. None of the people we spoke to wanted to reveal their last name – maybe because Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms have already figured out too much where they shop.

Charlie and Natalia said it was strange walking into the neighborhood to visit brick and mortar stores and being hit by a display prompting you to shop online.

At the very least, you’ll see more companies that might otherwise not be seen.

“If you come here, you probably want to do something more tangible than shopping online,” said Charlie as a line of people walked past the display to head next door to the Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop, which is “somewhere between a” natural history museum and an antique shop ” so the website.

“That’s a better use of space than leaving it empty, I guess,” said Charlie. “At least you see more companies that might not otherwise be seen,” added Natalia.

When asked if it was annoying to be hit by a physical ad on the street when you’re already being addressed while scrolling on Facebook or Instagram, Natalia said she had nothing against ads.

“You know what I want,” she said. “I feel like [the algorithm] knows me better than some of my friends. “

(GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Morgan and Joseph stopped because they “saw it all” and Morgan was wearing a Patagonia jacket that he had bought in the store that used to stand on the spot.

“I buy a lot of stuff on Instagram,” one of them said when joking that they needed a new lamp recently, so they said “lamp” several times near their phones to supposedly trigger lamp advertisements on their social media.

“It looks very corporate, like it might be at the airport,” Morgan said of the text-heavy window display. “It doesn’t connect enough to the neighborhood,” added Joseph.

None of the men took out a phone to activate any of the QR codes.

Many businesses in the Ballard neighborhood and across Seattle were boarded up in the early days of the pandemic. (GeekWire photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Heather and Matt called the display “bizarre,” but also agreed it was better than boarded up windows – something the neighborhood saw a lot in the early days of the pandemic.

“It feels like a big mall,” said Matt. “But then you stop and read it and see that it’s small businesses and you feel bad.”

Heather told her that she would have to scan a QR code with her phone to start a Facebook or Instagram page for the companies.

“I just won’t do this. But I’m old, ”she laughed.