Online shopping has put consumers in the driving seat. Shoppers now have 24-hour convenience and can do their own research at the tap of a screen. In fact, Internet shopping increased by 17.8% in 20131, suggesting a revolution rather than just an evolution. Therefore, you’d be led to believe that shopping is increasingly becoming a transactional process, right? Wrong.
A recent survey of
the shopping habits of 18- to 25-year-olds suggests that just over two thirds of them -
some 68%2 - prefer to shop in stores for clothing and shoes. Furthermore, 53% of shoppers claim that friends are most
likely to influence them to buy new clothes, rather than responding to a
magazine advert, which is 20%3.
This seems to be the reason why retailers are doing everything they can
to create advocates, or brand friends, that will share their good news. To achieve this, creating the right brand
experience is critical to having an emotional connection rather than just a
transactional one.
Simply put, the shopper experience is, and will
remain, top of the agenda for a long time.
But how are brands surprising and delighting today’s consumers? We’ve identified two retail trends to help shed
some light..
1. High street retailers creating experiences
out of store:
Retailers are looking beyond
their own space
and taking themselves out to consumers.
By creating experiences in places where consumers would not expect, they are achieving social fuel, which
in theory leads to brand advocates. In
February this year, Topshop
used their London Fashion Week catwalk at the Tate Modern as the content to
drive exciting experiences away from the action. Consumers were given the chance to experience
a live stream of the action at their Oxford Street store shop window. Five
lucky winners were plucked out of the crowd and taken south of the river for a
front row seat at the show. Topshop
cleverly took the action online too to achieve much wider coverage. The fashion show was streamed live where consumers
could ‘Shoot and Share’ the catwalk looks they loved with their friends online.
Another example is New Look, which has
created its own branded double-decker bus which goes on tour across the UK this
month to take the stress out of shopping for jeans. New Look wants to delight shoppers by giving
them a sleek and fun way to try and buy denim wear. The bus has its own
spacious changing facilities, ‘chillax area’ and nail bar, as well as a ‘Selfie
Studio’ where people snap and share online for the chance to win £500 worth of
vouchers. The mobility of this experience means that it can go to locations at
specific times to suit the needs of their target audience, and give them more
than just a store experience.
Other exciting out of store retail
experiences seem to be popping up everywhere.
Burberry
launched a raft of experiential activity during last year’s festive
campaign. An iconic delivery van took to the streets of London supported by fashion
events and a pop-up experience in Harrods. Whilst GAP, and this is one I personally experienced,
deployed their ‘Cheer Squads’. A group of beautiful, GAP wearing hipsters
performing carefully choreographed skits for unsuspecting shoppers in London. It was
quite excellent street theatre that achieved its objective of driving footfall
to their stores.
2. Online retailers creating their own physical
store experiences:
This emerging trend, labelled "clicks to bricks" or "e-tail to
retail", looks set to write yet another chapter in the story of the recent
retail revolution.
With the fact that
68% of consumers prefer to shop in-store for shoes and clothing, it is no
wonder that online retailers are searching for ways to connect with their
audience offline. And it’s the retailers
that are willing to create rich and fun experiences that seem to be winning.
A good example of
this is Rapha, the premium
cycle wear brand currently being donned by Team Sky. The business started life in 2004 as an
online retailer and they quickly
realised that to achieve a genuine connection with their consumers, they needed a real world experience
to build their character. Rapha opened five stores around the world in London, San
Francisco, New York, Osaka and Sydney. The power of these store experiences has led
to a meteoric rise for the brand in a relatively established and crowded market
place. The brand experience goes way beyond great design and mood
lighting. They tap into a cycling lifestyle
and culture by providing a café, pro bike race screening evenings and its very
own club where riders can join other enthusiasts on rides to the
countryside. The majority of their sales
remain online, but these precision-engineered experiences have been invaluable
in developing their brand story.
Bonobos, a US clothing online retailer, is another good example. They seem to have gone one step further by
creating pop-up guide stores, a concept that involves shoppers browsing merchandise
then ordering online for a home delivery.
As well as providing a unique experience for its audience, it also
creates great content for them to use to excite and energise their online
community.
Final thought:
The irony seems to
be that the digital and Omni channel revolution is in fact making the retail
brand experience, whether in-store or out of store, more important than it has
ever been. People talk about their experiences and if they have a great one,
they’ll ultimately become an advocate, which in today’s retail world
seems to be the Holy Grail.
The Network Experiential is an
experiential marketing agency specialising in insight, creative, production and
staffing. We are experienced in retail
activation (both in-store and out of store) and pop-up solutions. Please do
contact us for more information.
By Simon Couch, Director of Experiential, The Network Experiential
Sources:
1. British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for December 2013
2. LIM College
Students' Survey “Shopping Trends Among 18-25 Year-Olds” 2012
3. Cotton
Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor 2013
