Experiential retail is an immersive experience offered by retailers in physical stores for shoppers. An example of this is pop-up stores, in-store workshops, and organizing community events.
What is Experiential Retail?
Experiential retail is the process of creating unforgettable shopping experiences for consumers. It directly engages customers and invites them to experience your brand firsthand and in person.
As customers become more selective about the brands they shop from, the in-store shopping experience must stand out from the rest. However, the shopping experience should not merely be a promotional stunt, abandoning the commercial element altogether. After all, shoppers come to discover and purchase products.
According to a study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Shopify, more than two-thirds of consumers (35%) plan to engage with brands through retail experiences over the next year. Therefore, it is not surprising that 40% of brands said providing experiential retail will be one of their priorities in the coming year.
Benefits of Experiential Retail
Three out of four brand marketers rate experiential marketing as “very important or somewhat important,” according to a study conducted by Crossmark. Some countries see the positive impact of experiential retail faster than others. In China, for example, 78% of department stores have added experience elements in their stores.
Let’s take a look at the reasons why experiential retail is a priority for many retailers.
Meeting Experience-Seeking Shoppers
The retail landscape is constantly changing. Today’s customers do not just want to buy products; they seek memories. They are willing to spend more money on these memories: about 76% of shoppers prefer to spend money on experiences rather than products.
Experiential retail combines products and experiences to offer the best of both worlds. For instance, a hair care store with a barbershop provides an experience that young audiences want to spend money on, while still making products available for regular purchase.
Highlighting Community and Charitable Causes
Quality, price, and convenience are three items on the mental checklist of many consumers when looking for brands to purchase from. However, there is an element that retailers often overlook: purpose.
Research indicates that 77% of people feel more positively towards brands that make efforts to support the community. Additionally, for some generations like Gen Z and Millennials, community is essential. Having grown up in a digital revolution, half of Gen Z consumers want brands to have a social impact that they can be a part of.
Building Brand Loyalty
It’s likely that 93% of customers make repeat purchases with companies that provide excellent customer service. But this doesn’t come just from helpful responses from store assistants; customer support can take many forms — many of which relate to experiential retail.
Let’s say you run a handmade goods store and organize pottery classes in your shop. At the event, you guide customers on how to care for pottery, how to paint it, and tips on caring for their new vase at home.
All this information constitutes excellent customer service. You’ve earned their trust with your pottery knowledge, so when they want to purchase a professional vase, your store will be top of mind.
Increasing Foot Traffic
Who hasn’t visited an IKEA store on a rainy day? Many people visit these vast warehouses as a family outing. The home furniture designs provide inspiration for shoppers to decorate their own homes — along with great deals on merchandise everywhere.
In
A recent survey of European consumers found that 75% of respondents said that this type of immersive retail experience would convince them to shop in-store. The lesson: Offer your customers these experiences to increase foot traffic and boost in-store sales. (It’s easier to encourage people to buy a product when they are already in the store.)
Creating Opportunities for Social Interaction
Consumers often talk about their shopping experience with friends. More importantly, they share it on social media. The result is a cycle of experiential marketing that drives word-of-mouth marketing, where previous shoppers convince their friends to come and have the same experience.
Data collected by Buffer reveals that people typically share quotes and multimedia (like photos or videos) of live events on social media. This conversation helps create buzz around your brand and the products you’re promoting at the event, allowing you to reach two audiences: those at the event and their social media friends who are sharing it.
Ideas for Experiential Retail to Try
Mobile Trucks
Pop-up shops have become popular in recent years, but smaller retailers might find it challenging to launch a pop-up shop on a limited budget. Instead, you could launch a mobile truck instead. Agencies like Pop-Up Mob specialize in creating temporary experiences tailored for smaller retail brands.
Pop-Up Mob worked with a jewelry brand to create a mobile truck to coincide with the Art Basel festival in Miami. The vintage Volkswagen truck featured several items from the Bittar collection and encouraged visitors to take selfies with the truck between shows. The products were also available for purchase from the truck.
Mobile trucks have two major advantages over their physical store counterparts: temporariness and mobility. The Alexis Bittar truck was strategically parked outside the Faena Hotel in Miami Beach’s historic district during the Art Basel Miami festival. This allows the brand to capitalize on the significant foot traffic generated by the event and attract a wide range of potential customers among the exhibits during a festival that draws tens of thousands of people each year.
Community-Focused Events
Many retailers host events for their local community members. You can take this idea a step further by giving individuals a commercial space to gather. This is precisely what the camera and backpack company Peak Design did when it made its flagship store in San Francisco available as a co-working space for artists.
Every Wednesday from 1:00 PM to 5:30 PM, the Peak Design gallery and low-stock store become a co-working space for local photographers, artists, and other creatives. This targets 30% of city shoppers who want to see more retailers offering co-working spaces in stores.
In-Store Collaboration Initiatives
For some brands, a traditional in-store collaboration initiative can become something experiential. This is the approach taken by luxury accessory brand Senreve – which takes its name from the French words for “feeling” and “dream” – when it hosted a retail event at its San Francisco store in collaboration with luxury jewelry designer Aurate.
Upon first glance, one might think that pop-up events have little relevance to some of the innovative examples of experiential retail mentioned above. However, the experience is not inherent to the pop-up event itself, but rather in the complementary assortment of goods sold by retailers who share a similar mission and brand values.
Hands-On Workshops
You can start small by organizing in-person events at your actual store location. Perhaps teach customers how to use your products or offer a skills-related workshop that aligns with your niche.
It has become
Educational events are increasingly popular as a means to promote important issues as well as their own products.
Examples of Experiential Retail
There are six major brands standing out in experiential retail that successfully increase foot traffic, boost sales, and build long-term loyalty.
LIVELY
The entire store experience at LIVELY, a lingerie store, is a unique one. LIVELY’s founder, Michelle Cordeiro Grant, wants every store to feel like a private club: “We want women to come in and feel comfortable. They can count on us to come in here and not feel any pressure to shop.”
A part of its experiential retail strategy is fitting sessions. Customers book a session online and head to their appointment in-store, where a LIVELY sales associate assists them in finding the right bra size.
gorjana
The jewelry brand gorjana knows that the store’s atmosphere contributes to shoppers’ experiences when they visit. Instead of filling the store with best-selling items and maximizing floor space, its founders prioritized smell, aesthetics, and the feeling someone has when they enter the store.
Manifest and Flow
Manifest and Flow began selling crystals and magazines to its customers online. The brand introduced a mysterious machine for crystals as a way to do this. Anyone placing an order online worth $20 or more receives a mysterious bag from the machine.
Canada Goose
The clothing brand Canada Goose, known for its outerwear, created a cold room in five of its retail locations. Shoppers can wear a coat and stand in a chilling room with temperatures reaching -27 degrees Fahrenheit. The benefit of the product was clear; anyone planning to go to a cold area knows they need to take a Canada Goose coat with them.
Tecovas
Footwear retailer Tecovas takes a simple yet effective approach by offering services at its Austin, Texas store. Shoppers can enjoy beverages, shoe polishing, and expert selection tips during their visit. An exclusive range of products is also available that shoppers can find only in-store.
Nike Rise
The Nike brand is no stranger to experiential retail. Its new business concept, Nike Rise, is the store of the future.
The Future of Experiential Retail
The future of retail is hard to predict. However, trends and changes in consumer behavior suggest that experiential retail is here to stay – just with some changes.
Augmented Reality
Retailers can rely on emerging technologies to deliver the experiences shoppers are looking for. Augmented reality is one example. It works by overlaying graphics on a live stream of something – whether it’s your store, a customer’s body, or their home.
Experiential Clothing
Virtual fitting rooms are the best example of how brands can use augmented reality for experiential marketing. Some experiences feature smart mirrors in their stores. Customers can choose an item from the store and take it to a virtual fitting room to see how the product looks on their own body – without having to change clothes.
Integrating In-Store and Online Data
Personalization is at the heart of many great shopping experiences. Nearly half of consumers in the United States have purchased something more expensive than planned due to a personalized customer experience.
Store Associate Training is Essential
No matter what type of experience you offer shoppers in-store, make sure to train your sales associates and know how to handle the event.
The Impact of COVID-19
We cannot ignore the impact of COVID-19 on experiential retail events. At the start of 2020, physical stores were closed. Although half of shoppers plan to return to in-store shopping as soon as restrictions are lifted in their local area, people are still concerned about their health and safety.
This makes
Safety procedures in the store such as mandatory mask-wearing, limiting the number of people in the store, and regularly cleaning the store are three measures that make shoppers feel more confident shopping in-store after the pandemic.
Create Unique Experiences in Your Store
Experiential retail is not a passing trend – it’s the future of how, where, and when we shop. Consumers today have higher expectations than ever, and experiential retail is quickly becoming the new standard as it provides the experience that shoppers want to spend money on.
In addition to being an emerging and fun marketing method, it helps you engage with current and potential customers and gets you out from behind the screen. Consider it the way to build lasting relationships that go beyond the initial experience.
Source: https://www.shopify.com/retail/experiential-retail-for-smaller-brands
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item.lwrp-empty-list-item{
background: initial !important;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-link .lwrp-list-link-title-text,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-no-posts-message{
}@media screen and (max-width: 480px) {
.lwrp.link-whisper-related-posts{
}
.lwrp .lwrp-title{
}.lwrp .lwrp-description{
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-multi-container{
flex-direction: column;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-multi-container ul.lwrp-list{
margin-top: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
padding-top: 0px;
padding-bottom: 0px;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-double,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-triple{
width: 100%;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-row-container{
justify-content: initial;
flex-direction: column;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-row-container .lwrp-list-item{
width: 100%;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item:not(.lwrp-no-posts-message-item){
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-link .lwrp-list-link-title-text,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-no-posts-message{
};
}
Leave a Reply