In recent years, accelerated by the effects of our international health crisis trends, there have been a number of changes to the landscape of retail design. The high street has become abundant with shop design and brand trends as retailers seek to not only navigate the challenge of lockdowns but also meet the changing needs of shoppers. Of all these new directions, it is experiential retail that seems to be most pervasive and most persistent.
What Is Experiential Retail?
Retail spaces have historically placed priority upon the act of sale, the transaction. Experiential retail instead focuses on emotion and sensation. Customers are encouraged to learn about products by experiencing them in tangible ways and with a number of senses. By doing so, they are forming a relationship with the product and brand, becoming immersed in its associated lifestyle.
While this concept has become widely celebrated across the high street in recent years, many retailers are likely to be familiar with a more rudimentary form of experience retail in some way. Receiving a makeover at a beauty store is a form of experiential retail, as is taking a test drive in a car. These small experiences go a long way to better bond a customer with the product.
Why Is It Effective?
Unlike online sales, which limit a customer’s experience entirely to two dimensions, with only visual mediums to entice their interest, high street experiences allow customers to experience not only the product itself but the brand. Our Crown Display team, for example, constructed a custom pop-up retail experience for eos, an event that saw shop shelving and furniture created in vibrant, bubblegum pink. The effect of this was to accentuate the aesthetic of the brand, immersing customers in an exciting experience.
It works in a number of ways. Firstly, as described, customers get an honest and full understanding of the products, aligning them with their own tastes. Secondly, they work as great opportunities for sharing.
As social media becomes the most effective advertising tool, it benefits stores to encourage customers into sharing their experiences online, passing along recommendations and enticing their friends and followers to experience the same retail space they have enjoyed.
The Future Of Retail
Retailers are continuing to make their way through the pandemic and, as they do, they are often finding that the high street remains populated, with brick and mortar stores being valued by the community. There are a number of reasons why this may be the case but it bodes particularly well for the trend of experience since it is a retail design that cannot be better replicated online.
If you are looking to embrace experiential retail and would like to discuss redesigning your store space with a new bespoke aesthetic, they reach out to a member of our team. With years of experience in shop design, supporting stores across the country with advice, products, and bespoke shop furniture manufacturing, we are here to help. Simply call 0800 587 5880 or, alternatively, email sales@crowndisplay.co.uk.
