Retailers must now appeal to all five senses in order to draw customers offline
By Dan Emerson
BridgeTower Media Newswires
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — At some Neiman Marcus stores nationwide, dressing rooms are equipped with digital “memory mirrors” that can record an eight-second video of shoppers when they try on clothing.
It’s not for security purposes. Shoppers can get a 360-degree view of the outfit they’re trying on and text the video to a friend for feedback.
That’s one of the leading-edge examples of how the internet and related technology are reshaping the design of brick-and-mortar stores.
To compete successfully with online retailers, brick-and-mortar retailers are learning to build on the sensory experience of shopping that the internet can’t provide.
The retail industry, of course, is in the midst of what designer Tanya Spaulding calls “a great cultural shift.” Retailers are trying to get people to take a break from their smartphones and computers.
“People are looking for compelling reasons not to do everything with their phones,” said Spaulding, a principal with Shea Design in Minneapolis. “As designers, we have to capitalize on that and create compelling reasons for them to get out and do something engaging and interactive.”
To give people reasons to leave technology behind and go out shopping, retailers need to appeal to all five senses — not just sight, she said. That means combining convenience with the “curated” experiences people crave.
“You really have to create interesting things for them to focus on from the minute they walk in the door,” Spaulding said.
Spaulding cites a “future forward” taste bar her agency created within Macy’s Ridgedale Center store in Minnetonka, where customers can sample and buy gourmet food products.
“The whole key is giving them a chance to taste, touch and feel things you can’t experience online,” she said.
A certain amount of trial and error will continue, but more retailers are experimenting with small “popup” kiosks or other small displays to test the waters.
“Until people come and try them, you don’t know. The key is to try smaller things without making a commitment,” Spaulding said. Even the heavyweight champ of online retailers, Amazon, has been trying small pop-up shops.
Not all brick-and-mortar retailers have caught up to the change, yet, said Greg Houck, an associate principal specializing in restaurant and retail design at the Cuningham Group in Minneapolis. “Many of the big-box retailers are still based on commodity, not experience, and that is hurting them,” he said.
Disney, which has been focused on providing experiences since the original Disneyland opened in 1955, has applied that expertise to
entertainment-based retail, Houck notes. “They treat people as guests, not customers,” he said.
As the internet has made the world seem smaller, “people have gotten to see what good design is in different parts of the world,” he said, “so our expectations are higher for store design.
“Millennials in particular are very discerning about design,” Houck said.
That designed experience is what will draw people out to go shopping. Houck says he heard someone characterize the typical modern store as 30 percent entertainment, 70 percent retail.
“That mix is going to slowly flip,” he said.
One local example of integrating entertainment and shopping is the Bauer Hockey Experience store in Bloomington, where shoppers can try out skates and other equipment on a small sheet of artificial ice before they buy.
Connecting the online and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences is essential for retailers, said Reggie Reyes, vice president of brand experience at KNOCK Inc., a Minneapolis creative agency. For retailers, it’s important to have the “right” content online that reflects what is in the store, he said.
“Retail is evolving, and the key to the future is having the right balance of online and physical store,” Reyes said.
For the Mall of America, KNOCK developed a smartphone app to help shoppers navigate the Bloomington megamall’s exhaustive range of retail choices. Retailer apps have also been developed to “track” shoppers who opt-in, to develop “heat maps” of where shoppers are lingering in the store and how much time they spend lingering at certain displays.
Some retailers are doing the same thing by asking selected shoppers to wear eye-tracking glasses.
Reyes noted that the merging of online and real world shopping is continuing with a counter trend: Some successful retailers who started as online-only businesses are developing physical stores. Two examples are the mattress-maker Casper and the eyeglass brand Warby Parker.
“‘Physical’ retail will always be there,” Reyes said. “We, as humans, really want to see, touch and feel.”
