Every retailer wants to make sure that customers find everything they want and that they come back for more. However, for this to happen, customers don’t just want to come to the store to shop, they want to live an experience. Products can be found everywhere nowadays, but experience Retail experience examplesces are harder to find.
In this article, we are going to talk about retail experiences and give you some retail experience examples to help you better understand how to engage customers.
What is a retail experience?
A retail experience is a way customers feel and act when they are inside a brick-and-mortar store. Everything from admiring the perfectly displayed products, up to engaging with employees or playing a game inside the store.
Every experience is unique and that’s why retailers should focus on offering their customers the best. Experiential retail for brick and mortar stores is a great way in which retailers can make sure that customers are engaged and want to return.
Experiential retail, also known as retailtainment, is a combination of tactics that help retailers and brands create experiences inside brick and mortar stores to engage customers. Shoppers love experiences and that’s why we will show you 3 types of retail experiences that will help you engage customers.
Also read: How Data will Help Retail Marketers in 2021
3 Types of retail experiences
While most retailers just focus on keeping the shelves stocked, the best brick and mortar stores also think about fun, interesting, and entertaining ways to engage with their customers. Here are a few ideas that can help you be among the best retailers.
1. Treasure hunt
People LOVE to treasure hunts. It’s all that rush and excitement that makes you want to look for more. That’s why some of the best retailers wanted to offer this type of retail experience to their customers. While retailers don’t organize actual treasure hunts where people receive things for free, it’s all about unexpected, discounted products.
Both Lidl and TJ Maxx use these retailtainment tactics on a weekly basis. People know that those products are limited and they will hurry to purchase them once they discover them.
How to implement it in your store?
Easy! You just need to find some products whose prices you can reduce or offer as a bundle and “hide” them around the store. Tell people that can stumble upon some “treasures” that have a special price and are a limited offer.
2. Retail on wheels
It is equally important to drive customer engagement by using techniques both indoors and outdoors. For driving attention outdoors you can turn to advertisements both on socials and offline. Sometimes the mere reason why your retail store is not getting attention is that people do not recognize it. Getting your brand just before your customers can help boost your brand recognition and consequently more sales.
How to implement it in your store?
Hiring a pop-up shop on wheels can be a great way to get your brand to the streets and move it to your customers. Make sure you come up with creative solutions, including freebies, and go where your customer is.”
3. Innovation-based experiences
If you have a store that focuses on the power of technology and innovation, then this is an entire experience you can offer your customers. Bring in the best, most innovative tools and solutions that will make the shopping experience go smoothly.
How to implement it in your store?
For example, try to implement a brand activation campaign with robotic POS displays. Tokinomo will make products move, dance, sing, and talk because of its sound, light, and motion technology.
Other technologies you can include in your store are:
- Stock measuring robots
- Customer service robots
- Self-checkout
4. Product-building
Shoppers are tired of seeing the same things they eat or wear at other people. They want to have the option to personalize their products in a certain way. That’s why you should offer your customers the possibility to build their own products. No, not from scratch, but they need to be able to personalize it a bit.
Also read: 15 Effective and Creative Ways to Bring in Local Customers
How to implement it in your store?
For example, let’s say that you sell jewelry. Like many jewelry stores, you probably allow people to engrave their jewelry, but have you tried to offer customers the possibility to design their own jewelry?
If you are selling eyeglasses, you can allow customers to personalize their frames, from the size to add a little something extra.
Even grocery stores can do this type of retail experience. They can allow customers to design their own sheet cake or shopping bag.
Retail experience examples
If you are looking for a bit of inspiration, then we’ve got you covered. To help you get started, we’ve selected a few in-store experiences that helped other retailers and brands better engage with their customers.
1. New York & Co.
Back in 2015, the beloved brick and mortar store used real-life mannequins instead of those made out of plastic. Of course, shoppers loved to see how the clothes actually fitted real people.
2. Danone
Danone wanted to create an in-store influencer marketing campaign. However, COVID-19 restrictions made it almost impossible to do so. Also, it was impossible to bring the influencer to every store. They used Tokinomo and recorded the voice of the influencer to make it seem like she was talking with all of the shoppers in every store.
3. The Game Chest
The Game Chest allows guests to have hands-on fun with several of their toys and board games. Of course, once a game gets you all caught up, you will eventually purchase it, right?
A lot of their toys are openly displayed so children can literally play with large train sets and blocks in-store.
These are just a few retail experience examples that should help you implement what works for you and your shoppers. Try to think outside the box and don’t forget to find the right in-store marketing solutions to build the perfect retail experience.
Leave a comment