text: While coworking spaces like WeWork are increasingly expanding their retail services, partnering with everything from food & beverage to apparel brands to make their spaces more useful to customers, pure-play retailers are also merging work with shopping. SHOWFIELDS is the latest to do so, launching today its 40-person space complete with roofdeck terrace to complement its flexible, experience-led retail space that helps popular online-only brands go physical.
  Perhaps one of the more unusual aspects of this coworking space in particular is that it is free of charge—asking only that those interested subscribe to SHOWFIELDS' newsletter. PSFK spoke to CEO and co-founder Tal Nathanel to find out more about how the service space adds value to its business model, as well as how it helps generate what he explains is an increasingly crucial element of brick and mortar retail: community.
  When people say “Retail As A Service” they tend to focus on the ability for brands to have fixability around space only. What SHOWFIELDS is trying to do for brands is give them a platform to that next phase of commerce: consumer commerce or C-commerce. There are five principles of consumer commerce, one being convenience. I believe that RAAS falls into the convenience principle and is just one part of the future of retail.
  What inspired or motivated you to add the coworking space to the SHOWFIELDS experience? How does this particular type of service complement the business and drive engagement?
  One of the most important principles of C-commerce is community. This concept invites retailers to ask themselves what the space could look like if it was built around the needs of their community. At SHOWFIELDS, that's exactly what we did. Our community is made of creators and one of their needs is space that serves as a place to work while they build the brands of tomorrow. This is not an office. This is a place to stay, meet, chill and get inspired by people like you.
  The SHOWFIELDS coworking space can fit up to 40 people and is open weekly Monday through Thursday. The space features free WiFi, plenty of seating and even a roofdeck terrace if you prefer sending emails in the sunshine! The space is staffed by a SHOWFIELDS brand rep daily. To join us at The Loft, staff will first confirm you are a FRIEND of SHOWFIELDS by having signed up to our mailing list which you can do here.
  One unique component of your coworking space is that it's free of charge—interested parties need only sign up for your newsletter. What drove this choice for form of ‘payment,' and how do you enable it?