9 June 2017
Don’t be average
– be awesome
Digitalisation of the physical shops becomes more and more widespread and with good reason. The customers’ expectations are also developing digitally and it is crucial that you, in your capacity as company, have the courage to be unique, take chances and turn your physical shop into more than just a point of purchase.
Retail is a people business not a product business
When Hesehus was in New York for the year’s biggest retail conference Retail's BIG Show 2017, it was obvious how the companies over there have really taken the digitalisation of the physical shop to heart and have thus succeeded in satisfying the customers and their needs. Today, the customers are increasing interested in how you sell and not only in what you sell. This also applies in the physical shops where the customers are increasingly expecting more than business as usual.
Products are everywhere and the customers know that they can easily and quickly find a certain product and often at the best price online, so it can quickly become an expensive affair for a company to compete on price, product and convenience alone. It is therefore about time to pause, rethink the strategy and focus on the consumer’s request for experience and authenticity.
Make the customers want to visit the shop
What the customers want when they shop is not just a product but an experience. And you can give them this by being unique, having the courage to focus and making a change – simply by being awesome! The fact is that the customers do not need to visit your shop because they can buy all of their products on the Internet. You have to make them want to come.
But what is it really that your customers want? As e-sellers you actually already have the answer. It is stored in all the data which you have the opportunity to collect when your customers interact with you whether it is via your newsletter, in the webshop, the social media, etc. By using this data to get to know your customers, you can create exactly the experience they want and wish to share with their network which is very much happening via the social media.
The more you get your customers to interact with you, among other things in-store, the better you get to know them and the better you can satisfy their expectations. A positive trend which it is worth getting started.
Experience, experience, experience
Several of the very large brands have already started moving focus from product and price to experiences, including Nike. In their five storey tall flagship store in Soho, it is not the products that count but rather engaging the customers. As one of the employees in the store explains:
”We don’t care if you buy. You can buy 90% of what is in the store online, our job is to create a relationship with you, the customer, and the brand”.
For that reason, the enormous flagship store has not been filled up with a huge number of products in all sizes, forms and colours. On the contrary, Nike has chosen to use the space for creating experiences. There are, among other things, a basketball pitch where the customers can try on the basket boots in action, running machines placed in front of a gigantic widescreen with live recordings from Central Park allowing the customers to try on the trainers in realistic surroundings, a football pitch for trying on football shoes and much more.
It is a question of creating a location where the customers want to hang out with friends to interact with your brand. And this can be done with experiences.
15 products in the entire store
Another American company, which has had the courage to rethink the strategy and use space in the store for experiences in stead of products, is SONOS that specialises in music systems. They have 15 products in the entire store. In return, they have spent most of the square metres on seven soundproof rooms to create the best settings to allow the customers to really experience the products and have a more realistic impression of how, for example, loudspeakers will sound home in the flat. For the same reason, the store can only service seven customers or ‘parties’ at a time providing each individual customer with a quite unique and exclusive experience.
Another obvious example of how SONOS has move focus away from direct sale of the products to increased experience value and interaction is that there is no cash register in the store where the customers can buy the products. SONOS is quite simply selling the experience and of course the customers can buy the products in the webshop either while they are in the shore or when they are back home on the sofa.
Awesome does not have to be expensive
To be awesome and unique does not have to be expensive and difficult. It is a question of personality. About creating a bond to your customers. About communicating with your customers as if you were a friend with the purpose of helping them to reach their objectives and not as a brand wanting only to sell its latest products. In short, it is more a question of experience and socialisation – and less about direct sale. This is how you stand out from the competitors:
- Use your shop space for other purposes than just products and create experiences in the shop
- Increase the experience value by combining the digital and the physical – digitalise the physical shop and match the experience to each individual customer
- Create more socialisation and interaction
- Have less focus on direct sales
- Give the customers a reason to recommend you
Are you interested in hearing more about how we can help you be at the forefront of the latest digital trends and tendencies? We would like to invite you for a cup of coffee or we can visit you for a non-binding talk.
Contact Casper Bo Jørgensen, Customer Relations Manager, at: +45 23 30 79 56 or write to cbj@hesehus.dk
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