Solona NFTs' Retail Stores to Shut Down in US, Here’s Why

NFT market has garnered more traction on online channels than offline retail outlets in the current times. Now, two stores of Solana Spaces — dedicated to Solana-based NFTs — are being shut due to lack of customer footfall. These stores were established in New York City and Miami last year by Vibhu Norby, an investor based out of San Francisco, US. His intention behind opening these stores was to give the members of the NFT community a chance to experience NFTs in a more physical setting.

In the retail Solana Spaces stores, Solana-centric merchandises were available for purchase. Norby was expecting to get more investors to hop onboard the Solana community with these products.

The green and energy-efficient blockchain has, in recent times, emerged among the top choices for NFT creators to build their digital collectibles on.

The sales of Solana NFTs, which stood at $261.07 million (roughly Rs. 2,100 crore) in May last year, tumbled by 64 percent during the recent crypto winter. Around June 2022, the sales figure for Solana NFTs hovered around a significantly lower mark of $91.52 million (roughly Rs. 730 crore).

By the end of February, Norby plans to wind-up his retail NFT stores.

“Our endowed mission from day one was to experiment with new and disruptive models to bring people to Web3, and to serve the community on behalf of the Solana Foundation. Over the last two months, it became increasingly clear to me that we were at an inflection point with our stores and our digital products,” Norby wrote in an official post.

In less than a year, the stores recorded a footfall of around 75,000 people.

After this industrial experience, Norby aims to keep his focus on the online sales and distribution of NFTs.

He is already working on DRiP, a project that facilitates the airdropping of free NFTs for its users who just created digital wallets to check out the NFT space.

“While our stores onboard between 500 and 1000 people per week, DRiP onboards that same quantity every day. A few weeks ago, we made the call to focus our ongoing efforts on DRiP,” Norby added in his post.