Remodel your living space, Apple style

I saw this article at Advertising Lab and had to share: apparently the folks at oobject investigated a number of the products in-use at many Apple stores, tracked down the suppliers that made them, and put together a list on the web for those of us with slightly less free time :) If you're planning to remodel soon and have tastes that skew towards neo-Scandinavian minimalism, this might be a good source of ideas for you.

Of course, it's also possible that just a few of those Baleri Italia chairs will be enough to break the bank :)

Tags: apple, visual merchandising, store design

Would your store look good on the silver screen?

That's what experience design buff Adam Lawrence asks in a recent post to his blog, Work * Play * Experience. Specifically, Lawrence ponders what kind of insights we can learn about experience design by literally changing our perspective, and walking through a store/room/building looking through a camera. His advice: get a video camera and walk through your venue filming. By using only the camera viewport for navigation, you'll be drawn to details that you'd probably miss if walking through normally. As an added advantage, you can review the film later, pause, rewind and even invert the image to look for other flaws, details and areas that could use some improvement.

The idea stems from a technique used in film production. A good director knows that by looking through his viewfinder he's seeing what the audience will eventually see. A novice director, on the other hand, will watch the scene as it unfolds right in front of him and will thus mentally includes extra "stuff" that might make the scene better or worse, but will never make it onto the big screen. The idea extends well into a retail environment, especially for merchandising and retail marketing experts who often visit stores. Predisposed by years of experience to look for certain things -- shadows, lighting, traffic patterns and the like -- even a good retail designer can miss obvious flaws and details because they're outside of the scope of what he's looking for. By forcing the designer's perspective to change by using a camera viewfinder, it's more likely he'll look in different places and notice different things because there are fewer expectations of what the environment should look like.

Lawrence also recommends doing the same thing on your knees or in a wheelchair to get an idea of what a wheelchair-user or even a child's perspective of the same space might be. This is especially good advice for store designers whose primary customers are children and their parents. What might look good for one set of (physically similar) shoppers could be less attractive or even intimidating for another.

Tags: store design, retail media

A theatrical approach to experience design...

... is exactly what this PDF from ExperienceDesign advocates, and after flipping through 20 pages of informative and entertaining, I think this is a great way to re-frame the debate over how to improve customer experiences at retail. While probably not new to anybody who has spent a long time in the industry (I haven't), the tips in this introductory piece are thoughtful and insightful.

The root of the argument is that many parts of a retailer's environment are analogous to stage theatrics, from sales floor (stage) to personnel (actors) to customer base (audience), and by taking some cues from the theater world -- where the entire point of the gig is to entertain and have the audience begging for more by the end of the show -- retailers might just be able to give their customers a more satisfying experience.

The tips are divided into three broad categories (or acts, if you're trying to keep up with the theatrical lingo), each with four main points (scenes):

• Act I, Scene 1. Storyboarding: Boom-wowowow-BOOM!: Your first impression should be fantastic, but your last one needs to be spectacular.
• Act I, Scene 2. The making of: Show off hidden values so that customers get a fuller understanding and appreciation of the products/services you're providing.
  
• Act I, Scene 3. Prequels and sequels: Extend customer contacts outside the store and after the last in-store contact to build a lasting relationship.
  
• Act I, Scene. 4. Depth: finding beauty, authenticity and meaning: Cater to your customers' values, not just their wallets.
  

• Act II, Scene 1. Stage building: Use store architecture to further convey the core brand message.
  
• Act II, Scene 2. Backstage and exits: Likewise, always draw attention towards the meaningful parts of the environment.
  
• Act II, Scene 3. Let there be light: Lighting can make good things look better and bad things look worse. Use it liberally but wisely.
  
• Act II, Scene 4. Costume: Your staff's uniform, whether formal or informal, communicates your brand position as well, so make sure you know what it's saying.
  

• Act III, Scene 1. Rehearse: If your store is beautiful but your staff is untrained, unenthusiastic, or just plain inept, people will notice and avoid you like the plague.
  
• Act III, Scene 2. Get the lines right: Are there wrote lines that your staff delivers 100 times a day? Could they maybe be a little better/more informative/more fun than they are right now?
• Act III, Scene 3. Let stars be stars: Everyone on your team has some character, so let it stand out. As a corollary to this, be honest, not fake.
  
• Act III, Scene 4. Timing is everything: Knowing when to deliver the punch line, whether it be a complement, critique, or simply presenting the evening's bill, can be just as important as knowing what to say.

Tags: store design, experience, experiential marketing

Re-thinking retail design to address consumer self-service

A few weeks ago SelfServiceWorld published an article on the "new rules" of retail design. The crux of the argument: "New technologies make it possible, for the first time, to reach those individual customers with individual experiences. Digital signage, self-service — and, perhaps most importantly, the rise of multi-channel retailing — are demanding a new holistic view when it comes to the design of in-store experiences."

As I read through the rest of the article, which talks about retail media, shopper traffic monitoring and even shelving, I couldn't help but think: the rules are still the same. Ever since that first shop keep decided to put a sign outside his door advertising the arrival of fresh produce, biscuit mix or bolts of fabric, the rules have been largely the same. Make the store pleasing to the eye, ensure that shoppers feel comfortable, and (in the US at least), make sure that there's plenty of room to navigate. While there are arguments both for and against making products easy to find and convenient to purchase right away, these are more merchandising questions rather than design ones. Likewise, the addition of digital signage systems and other in-store media augment, not replace, current design considerations.

On the self-service front, there are basically two categories of devices that impact store design. The first are those machines that improve the store experience by making a hard process easier. I'd place self-checkout lanes, price lookup terminals and product information kiosks into this category because each provides shoppers a way to perform a standard in-store action more quickly and with less hassle than before. However, in all of these cases while store design might have to be modified slightly to make optimal use of the technology, they certainly don't require dramatic changes. The second category of self-service devices gives shoppers access to new services that they might not have had before. Loyalty program kiosks and product extension/virtual shopping terminals go here, because these kinds of activities are generally not available otherwise. These technologies have the potential to be quite disruptive when properly integrated into a store's business and design plan, and I could see the case for making significant changes to a store's layout if management thought it would drive business via these devices.

With everybody from Wal-Mart to Victoria's Secret constantly trying out new designs in an effort to improve the in-store experience, it's clear that there's no sure-fire method for winning over customers. Between changing tastes, new and diversified product/service offerings and the fickle nature of shoppers in general, the best we can do is try and keep up with consumer trends while making stores more enjoyable to navigate. While new retail media services can make the shopping experience better and even more fun, to those who have already been exposed to the fine art of store design, I think they're more likely to inspire ideas of evolution rather than revolution.

Tags: store design, retail media, merchandising

Luxury auto dealerships invest in good design

While consumer retail garners the most attention when it comes to in-store media, a lot is going on in the retail automotive sector that deserves some commentary as well. My company has been working in that space for about four years now, installing both interactive kiosks and digital signs into hundreds of US dealers, and big chains like AutoNation have also invested in chain-wide digital media networks.

USA Today apparently noticed the trend, as they published this article about the lengths that luxury retail auto dealers are going to in order to bring their dealerships up to snuff. They note:

At Fletcher Jones Motorcars, customers stroll through a gallery of Mercedes-Benzes, linger at the cappuccino bar, tap balls on the putting green or go for a pedicure.

A couple of blocks away, Newport Lexus boasts marble fireplaces, Oakley and Tommy Bahama beachwear boutiques — and a flat-screen television, tuned to ESPN, of course, mounted above the urinal in the men's room.

The two dealerships are pouring on the fancy fixtures and service extras as they vie for a larger share of one of the nation's most prosperous luxury-car markets, coastal Orange County. But even far from "The O.C.," auto industry officials see the sprucing up of luxury-car dealers as a sign that the high-end market could finally be brightening.

I don't know if I'd particulary want a pedicure from my auto dealer, but it's certainly interesting to see that retail design is being used as a gauge for market performance.

Tags: retail automotive, auto dealerships, retail design, store design

Uniqlo injects Eastern design into western retail

Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo falls into the same category as H&M for me -- a trendy-looking store that I'd never actually buy anything in, but is visually appealing and shoppable nonetheless. Apparently I'm not the only one to think so either (well, the looks cool part, anyway, I'm sure these stores are heavily shopped), since BusinessWeek decided to do an article on their approach to retail design a few weeks ago. Semi-famous retail architect Masamichi Katayama designed the New York flagship store that's getting all the attention, and in the article he describes the store's "Japanese-ness" as "seiriseiton, " which he then further translates into "simplicity" and "orderliness."

While spartan layouts and stylish fixtures have long been present in tiny boutiques and haute couture specialty retailers, Uniqlo is trying to blend their casually trendy offerings with a high style, dare I say upscale retail design that oozes with simplicity and orderliness. From what I've seen, I certainly think they've met their design goals.

Tags: Uniqlo, retail design, store design