ThinkGeek Opens First Physical Store In Orlando

New submitter Enderxeno writes with news that on September 25th, geek merchandise retailer ThinkGeek will open its first brick-and-mortar store in Orlando, Florida. The store will open in a mall, and the company will be running it with the help of GameStop, who bought ThinkGeek back in June. The new store will have a 3,000 square foot space that used to be occupied by Radio Shack, and it will focus "entirely on collectibles." (Disclosure: Slashdot and ThinkGeek used to share a corporate overlord. We don't talk anymore, but we still like them. Even though they finally took away our employee discounts.)

No more discount?

[Noryungi]

What? No more discount on ThinkGeek for /. employees?

Man, that's harsh.

SlashDot EMPLOYEES?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> What? No more discount on ThinkGeek for /. employees?

I'm more surprised that there are actual SlashDot employees. From the quality of editing and community response we get around here I guess I just thought this place was run by a bunch of unpaid Dice interns.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Unpaid internships are largely illegal.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody wants your facts.

Re:

[dpidcoe]

I always thought "internship" meant "work for experience instead of money" to solve that whole "cant get a job without experience / can't get experience without a job".

That's not at all what it means. I worked my way through college first as a helpdesk intern, then moved over to software and programming. It didn't pay a ton, but it paid enough to graduate debt free by working full time in the summers and part time during the semesters.

Re:

[Darinbob]

I worked full time in the summers, but these were not internships.

Re:

[Darinbob]

When I was in college, intern meant you worked at or below minimum wage but you also got college credits. So most students in engineering did not get internships because they had enough credits but they did get summer jobs. But in arts and humanities they went for internships as a way to get credits and a little spending cash.

Re:

[HideyoshiJP]

Unpaid internships are largely illegal.

I read that as "barely legal." I'll see myself out.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as "barely legal."

"Barely legal Slashdot interns"

Does ThinkGeek sell eye bleach?

Re:

[dreamchaser]

I read that as "barely legal."

"Barely legal Slashdot interns"

Does ThinkGeek sell eye bleach?

I just had a horrible mental image of chubby, pasty colored 18 year old boys trying to grow neckbeards and failing. Now I need to go get some real eyebleach [eyebleach.com]. Even that might not be enough.

Re:

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Says who?

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=U... [indeed.com]

Re:

[Darinbob]

The interns turned out to be overqualified.

Re:

[NotDrWho]

Yeah, but you can get a *25 cents* in trade-in credit for that signed Babe Ruth card. Don't you want that credit?

I'd go

[FranTaylor]

but I have an air freshener in my car and I don't want to get shot

Busy location

[Infiniti2000]

For those who wonder, the Florida Mall is a very busy mall. Elsewhere around the country, the malls are getting thin on customers, but there are a lot of tourists here. The Florida Hotel is in the mall and gets a lot of customers who want to visit the touristy areas of Orlando, particularly on International Drive.

Re:

[FranTaylor]

there are a lot of tourists here.

hey honey, we're on vacation, instead of going to disney world or nasa, let's go to a mall and look at electronic gizmos, yeah that's the ticket

Re:

[FranTaylor]

Living here, I can tell you it's truer than ever. I worked at the Toys R Us there at Florida Mall, and we would have "code red" exercises, which meant tour buses just pulled up and we're about to get slammed. It would usually be tourists from Brazil or Britain, and other south American and European countries. Literally 3 or 4 buses at a time, couple of times a day. Tourist LOVE to shop here, for whatever reason.

the entire state is about to be ankle-deep in salt water, gotta enjoy it while you can

Re:

[dreamchaser]

Every mall here in the greater Pittsburgh region is packed the rare times I go, and all seem to be doing quite well. There, I countered your anecdote with another! Have at you!

You're correct about that mall though. I've been there and it was very busy indeed.

Re:

[Infiniti2000]

Well, the customer base at Fashion Square Mall (also here in Orlando) is extremely thin. They are building a hotel inside it, too, hoping to capitalize on the theme that seems to work at Florida Mall. So, I think it's more than an anecdote. The Oviedo Marketplace also has low attendance, worse than it was 10 years ago, but not as bad as Fashion Square. The Artegon Marketplace, on the other hand, can be quite busy and has an awesome store called Gods and Monsters [godmonsters.com], which I bet would appeal to a lot more /

Re:

[NormalVisual]

Well, the customer base at Fashion Square Mall (also here in Orlando) is extremely thin.

Florida and Fashion Square aren't anywhere near comparable, though. Florida Mall is clearly visible to visiting tourists from 528, and is quite easy to get to. To get to Fashion Square Mall from the airport, you have to drive north on Semoran for a few miles through some increasingly rough parts of town, then west on Colonial for another mile or two, assuming you even know the mall is there to begin with. If you'r

Re:

[RogueyWon]

Personally, I thought the point where they began their downwards slide was when they lost their FYE and the book store. At that point, it basically became an Apple Store, two Gamestops and a vast array of over-priced clothing and accessory stores. Millennia's better but is inexorably going the same direction. When I'm in Orlando these days (got a family place out there that we used to run as a rental business), I end up driving right up to Altamonte Mall for shopping (which is relatively civilised and has s

Re:

[Shadow of Eternity]

Clearly you're not in orlando very often because Altamonte's almost as much of a ghost town as Oviedo and Fashion Square while Millenia's still doing well and has high end retailers like Tiffany's, Brooks Brothers, Allen Edmonds, and Burberry.

Re:

[RogueyWon]

But nowhere that sells books, DVDs, music or anything else that isn't clothing or video games. Depends what you're after, really. Millennia is certainly better in the clothing niche than Florida or Altamonte, but not everybody just wants clothing.

Re:

[RabidReindeer]

Florida Mall was pretty upscale - Princess Di used to shop there. But the surrounding neighborhoods aren't all that impressive. And I'm not sure that it's a tourist pull (I'd locate on I-Drive if that's what I wanted).

All the actual "local geeks" I've known were located towards the north and east parts of town - Maitland and beyond to the North is where most of the (non-military) tech jobs are and UCF to the East where the students and research park people are.

Re:

[FranTaylor]

Florida Mall was pretty upscale - Princess Di used to shop there.

Hernando De Soto went shopping there in 1539, he found that the native human lives were very cheap and he brought home a big bag of skulls.

In an old Radio Shack?

[NotDrWho]

You can start by selling off the thousands of crappy cellphones and cheap toys piled on the floor then.

BB-8?

[KatchooNJ]

Do they sell the new BB-8 toy or the Millennium Falcon drone? That's all I give a shit about.

I gots the nerd sweats! MUST.... HAVE!!!

A brick & mortar store, lol

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

A brick & mortar store selling overpriced shit that you can get online without leaving the house, what could go wrong?

Re:

[blazer1024]

Hey, it seems to work for Hot Topic!

...actually, the same could be asked for nearly every brick and mortar store!

Battletoads

[mrr]

You know what's collectible?

Battletoads.

Will Game Stop finally carry Battletoads?!

Re:

[blazer1024]

Are you sure they don't? Are you sure it isn't just snagged up 10 seconds after someone trades it in? (That is, if you believe anyone would trade it in!)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

That's a pretty terrible location.

[SvnLyrBrto]

Both the town and area seem just... wrong... for this.

I used to live in Orlando. And it's hardly a bastion of "geek culture". And what it does have is on pretty much the exact opposite side of town from the Florida Mall... in the Winter Park area that connects UCF and Rollins College. South OBT in general is pretty much a wasteland. And the ThinkGeek demographic, unless things have changed dramatically, doesn't go there.

Re:

[Mr Foobar]

I would guess that he did. It's fairly common here among locals to view most of Orange Blossom Trail south of 50 as a "wasteland". It's really not one of the nicer parts of town;

Actually, in years past, OBT going south of where it goes under I-4 to just about Sandlake Rd was referred to as "Orlando's Best Tourism." For all the strip joints and 'baudy houses' aka places where one could get sexually serviced. Now it's been considerably cleaned up, especially once OBT got widened. But do I remember when you almost had to run over the damn street walkers to drive down that road. Pretty sad...

Nice to see Orlando mentioned positively for once.

[Mr Foobar]

Like the subject says, not often my home town gets a positive spin story. For all the complaints any local resident will have, this is still a pretty damn nice place to live and work.

But I find the location of the store odd: at Florida Mall, right near the tourist region. I guess they mean for this store to be shopped more by the tourists than residents. Those of us who live here don't usually go to that mall, unless they live relatively close to it. Seems like if they were selling more for residents, they

Re:

[x_t0ken_407]

Lol, just posted something similar. Agreed with the Florida Mall being an odd location to place this store.

I was excited...

[sootman]

... up until I got to "will focus entirely on collectibles". Oh well. I'll still check it out. I'll just be a bit sad if I can't walk out with a titanium spork.

I'll check this store out in person

[x_t0ken_407]

Being that I'm from Orlando...not often we get the first of something -__-