Sonos flagship store offers a unique customer experience
Sonos is a high-end brand of audio equipment for the home. The Sonos flagship store in New-York is a model of outstanding retail customer experience. Follow us for an inspirational tour of this retail space located at the heart of SoHo, one of New-York’s most fashionable retail districts. How Sonos creates a unique in-store customer experience Unlike any other store the products are not prominently displayed in the Sonos flagship store. What you see when entering...
Louis Vuitton’s latest popup store in New-York open until 10 March 18
Vuitton opened a popup store on Greene Street, New-York, on 8 February 2018 to sell a limited collected of sneakers. The popup store, which will remain open until 10 March 2018, is located at the corner of Greene street and Prince street, two of the most fashionable retail streets in New-York. The Vuitton popup store is dedicated to the Archlight sneakers which, at $1090, may be the coolest and most desirable sneakers on earth. Expect to...
Retail: here’s how you can make it easy for people to buy more
How do you make sure your products are visible among a larger assortment and immediately attract shoppers’ attention ? By using visual salience. Summary Highlighting products in supermarket shelves Help the shopper’s brain make decisions What can be done to increase in-store purchases? Conclusion Supermarkets make it impossible for shoppers to understand the assortment Supermarkets organize products by departments and by categories. Within any given category products are placed next to each other without taking aesthetic...
Market analysis: what’s the future of supermarkets ?
How will supermarkets look like in 10 year from now ? Will employees be replaced by robots or won’t there just be any employees left ? While points of sales are more and more resembling an extension of online businesses with experience becoming more phygital (see an exemple here) and while showrooming is taking up, supermarkets have never changed as fast as today. Only for our subscribers: exclusive analyses and marketing advice Email address * Subscribe...
Retail : here’s how Lego ensures customers buy more
Supermarkets used to earn a lot of mony just before checkout. All the gums, sweets, … were there to tempt customers and add fat money to the bottom line. With the advent of smartphones retailers were surprized to see their sales plummet; consumers were too busy looking at their smartphones’ screens and impulsive behaviors were suddenly stopped. The Lego store in London found a way to counterattack. A checkout path was implemented that put temptation items...
Everything will be purchased online: only those offline businesses will survive
What will remain of brick-and-mortar stores in 20 years from now ? Not much. Consumers will adopt online behaviors and will visit physical points of sale on very few occasions : when forced to to enjoy a very special customer experience for the purpose of showrooming when e-commerce is a worse option Here are our predictions on 3 types of businesses which will survive to e-commerce and why they will. luxury sector : the #1 industry...
A qualitative market research of the Hollister & Co. brand perceptions
How do you explore customers’ perceptions about a brand ? Which methodologies should you use to elicitate brand images ? A recent research published in the Journal of Retailing explores consumers’ perception of Hollister and Co. and uses for this aim a vast array of market research techniques. Market research methods The methodologies used by the authors to explore consumers’ feelings, unconscious thoughts are complementary : qualitative interviews with different stakeholders, focus groups (see our article...
Dynamic pricing in retail : can smart shelves lead to discrimination?
We presented in another article a great innovation presented at the NRF2018 retail show this year : smart shelves. Those smart shelves are especially interesting because of their built-in cameras to detect customers’ faces and interact accordingly with them. As the website of AWM explains, the embarked face recognition algorithms are able to detect demographic criteria like gender, ethnicity and age (see picture below, source : AWM website, captured on 18 Jan 2018). The LED displays...
The 3 benefits of the new “Tap To Go” Ahold no-checkout supermarket
Since Amazon has launched its no-checkout Amazon Go store (see our article here), other retailers are keen on experimenting the same type of innovation. Ahold Delhaize is currently testing its “tap to go” system in a “Albert Heijn To Go” store of Zaandem where the headquarters of the group are located. Clients need to enroll first in the program and will receive an “instant payment” card equipped with NFC technology. That card is directly linked to...
Retail innovation: smart shelves enable dynamic pricing
The biggest retail show on earth just opened its doors in New York. The NRF 2018 is the ideal place to observe market trends in the retail sector (professional shows in general are very good places to start market research: see also the example of SIAL in the food sector). This year one interesting innovation caught our eyes : smart shelves enabling personalized pricing Smart shelves for dynamic pricing We already discussed adaptive pricing (or “dynamic...
Have black boxes led to bankruptcies in the restaurant industry ?
Back in 2015 Belgian authorities announced that B2C firms selling more than 25000€ per year in food (restaurants thus), would have to be equipped by July 2016 with a new model of cash register containing a black box registering all transactions. This, the authorities said, would put a stop to black money transactions. The restaurant industry reacted harshly and claimed that this measure would lead to massive bankruptcies, the reason being that the this sector was surviving on...
How Delhaize Urban Farm fits into their marketing strategy
Supermarkets Delhaize are known for a marketing strategy based on differentiation : premium products and a broader assortiment are part of Delhaize DNA. Delhaize has also invested for several years in its branding and has started positioning itself as a respectful brand. The opening of its urban farm on top of Delhaize Boondael (Brussels) roof is a cornerstone of this strategy. I had the pleasure to be invited by Delhaize to visit the Urban Farm and I really...
Walmart wants to deliver you IN your home
It should be always easier for people to order online, and in particular the delivery should be a smooth experience. Market researches show that delivery is actually a real pain point and the source of many complaints (delivery times longer than expected, nobody at home to take delivery of the parcel, …) In a attempt to do a thorough market research back in 2014-2015, we reported the huge progresses made by the logistics sector and the...
How to use single-sign-on in retail to improve customer experience
I recently gave a speech on identity management and GDPR at the Gigya Identified 2017 conference in London. There I had the opportunity to listen to another Julien Marlot who is the head of digital activities at Unibail. Unibail-Rodamco is Europe’s leading listed commercial property company specialized in shopping centers in European capital cities. Julien gave some very interesting insights about how Unibail-Rodamco uses identity management on its website and it made me reflect about the...
Ugly vegetables look more natural and give stores a better image
Consumers perceive “ugly”, misshappen vegetables, as more natural. Moreover communication campaigns promoting these “abnormal” products benefit also the stores , such campaign convey indeed a positive image in the minds of the customers. Those are the results of a study by Mia Birau and Corine Faure (University of Grenoble) which was presented at the latest EMAC 2017 conference in Groningen (The Netherlands). Market research on ugly products It all started with “ugly” vegetables, vegetables that were...
Interview of Edward Vizard on implementing Pay-What-You-Want at Garçonne & Chérubin
A few weeks ago we discussed an interesting, yet rather unusual, pricing scheme in the retail sector applied by e-merchant Garçonne & Cherubin : the Pay-What-You-Want system. We discuss today the experience of Edward Vizard, founder of Garçonne & Chérubin, on this pricing scheme. IntoTheMinds: How did you come up with the idea of ​​making a Pay-What-You-Want system? Edward Vizard : Being of British origin and particularly interested in UK consumers’ consumption patterns, I got interested in new...
Which market research method for a new concept, product or service ?
Recently I was approach by a large group in the hospitality industry which wanted to conduct a market research for a new concept they had in mind. This hospitality concept had been broadly sketched. What the client wanted was a market research to understand whether its idea could pick up, whether demand existed on the market for this concept. We were surprized to hear what competitors had proposed. Which market research methodology for a new concept...
Retail : Garconne et Cherubin offers “Pay-What-You-Want” option
“Pay What You Want” is a concept that allows customers to gain control back over the prices they pay. This technique is rather old and academic research dating back to 2009 showed the benefits of that approach. A few concrete examples were noticed here and there, but this marketing strategy remained rare. Firms remain reluctant to let customers decide and fear that this freedom may be misued by customers. In this context we got interested in...
Imperfection can also be a source of delight and customer satisfaction
Who said satisfaction stems from perfection. Imperfect products can also lead to enjoyment and satisfaction. Take for instance the example of Merci, a premium retailer located in Paris that attracs trendsetters from all over the world. They just started a temporary exhibition entitled “Imparfait, Nobody’s Perfect” (“Imperfect, Nobody’s Perfect” in English) which is dedicated to imperfect products : art works, serial products exhibiting failures and defects, but also some more traditonal products that are hardly perfectly...
Nissan Electric Café : a popup store where you pay with energy instead of money
Nissan opened an original popup café to promote XStorage, a product made from recycled Nissan Leaf batteries that aims at storing energy for home usage. Under the hashtag #ElectrifyTheWorld Nissan tries to start the dialogue with citizens on alternative ways to create, store and use energy. It’s also for them a way to promote their XStorage battery system, a by-product of Leaf batteries. For those of you who don’t know the Leaf, it’s their 100% electrical...
Amazon Go : this disruptive retail model hides a secret
Amazon Go is a 100% connected store where checkout are automated. Amazon Go is the convergence of at least 3 important trends : the first one is the diversification of Amazon into brick-and-mortar store the second one is a trend to decrease costs in the retail sector to increase margins the third one is the dream to put all behaviors into data to better predict what consumers will buy next Trend #1 : Amazon’s diversification into...
Dove opens first popup store in Paris : it’s superb
Dove opened in Paris its first ever popup store on 9 November 2016 in the Saint-Lazare neighborhood (105 rue Saint-Lazare) and the least we can say is that it was impressive. Unlike other popup stores, this one is just massive and resembles very much a “normal” store in terms of surface, personnel, and diversity of experiences proposed. In addition it has a very “clean” look, much aligned with Dove positioning. The store itself is divided into...
Thierry Mugler popup store creates sensory customer experience
Thierry Mugler opened à popup store for a very short period of time to promote his new perfume #HateToLove. This ephemeral retail space was located 14 rue de Turenne in Paris. Despite the limited space available, Mugler managed to create an interesting sensory customer experience, one that differentiates from what other popup stores propose (having a differentiation strategy, even for popup stores, has become pivotal for marketers) Next to some trendy “tools” that are now widespread...
Retail innovation : visit of Paulig Kulma coffee store in Helsinki
We just visited Kulma, the newest concept store of Finland-based coffee brand Paulig and it’s an amazing place. This experiental store, combining a roastery, a bar, a coffee store, a barista insititude opened at the end of summer 2016 on Aleksanterinkatu 9. We especially loved the first floor where two innovative spaces can be seen. The first one at the back of the store where “hanging chairs” are located to sip a coffee speciality in a...
Made.com : retail innovation at its best
Want to experience a truly innovative store : pay a visit to Made.com, a brick-and-mortar shop which offers a truly unique customer experience. Introduction Made.com is an online brand offering design furniture at democratic prices through bypassing intermediaries. Their Parisian store extends the online experience in the real world thanks to several innovations. Innovation n°1 : a wall of product sheets and material samples Not only does this wall produce a lasting visual impression. But it’s...
Retail design : beautiful optician store in Paris
We are always attentive to innovative retail design (read for instance our report on the recently opened Joe Sayegh store) and we found a store that is worth a visit . Parici is an optician store located 14 rue du Bourg Tibourg in Paris. The store caught our attention because of the dolls whose heads had been replaced by light bulbs. It encouraged us to enter the store (as you can see your store window is...
Big Data : what are the trends in the retail and insurance sectors ?
In partnership with Microsoft Europe (Brussels), the University of Louvain (Belgium) organized a conference on 13 May where I discussed the future impact of Big Data in the retail and insurance sectors. I started by outlining the 4 sectors that are heavy data producers and users : banking, insurance, retail and telecom. I showed that Big Data is used for only two purposes in these sectors : reduce costs or generate revenues. I then moved on...
Will Amazon revolutionize supply-chain management?
Two years ago we were analyzing on this blog the rise of a new logistics giant : Amazon. Amazon was successfully testing new delivery experiences with DHL and Audi. We also predicted Amazon was ready to compete directly with the DHL, Fedex and UPS of this world. The announcement made by Amazon to open parcel locker network across Europe, is a logical first step before entering the battle. As you may remember from our market research...
Will banks sell your data to retailers?
Your bank knows a lot about you and, as a matter of fact, the banking sector has been investing huge amount in Big Data for years. Similarly retailers know also a lot about you through the purchases you make. Is the next step a merger of data from both world to enhance behavior predictability ? This is the subject of an article on Visionary Marketing. However, unlike you may think, the idea of using banking data...
Service quality : the next retail challenge after Big Data
Algorithms have become instrumental in retailers’ strategies to increase loyalty among customers. We don’t know of any major retailer not having a Big Data team working on a.o. predicting churn, couponning, increasing loyalty, new segmentation, … Yet, what we also notice is that all retailers more or less all use the same tools, the same techniques for the same goals. It’s all about Spark, Hadoop, real-time processing and it’s true that technological progresses will certainly represent...
10 Parisian stores with a 3D-printed interactive window
In an earlier post we reported about an initiative launched in Paris to create interactive windows 3D printed elements made by Le FabShop. This initiative got launched by SEMAEST, a public organization which aims at promoting local retail in Paris. In December 2015 they gathered 10 retailers who rent spaces owned by SEMAEST : a flower shop, three book stores, a cheese shop, … Before the installations got dismantled on 10 Jan 2016, I wanted to...
4 retail problems that focus groups cannot solve
Focus groups are not the magic solution to all your marketing problems. Good market research uses focus group as an additional technique to confirm the results obtained elsewhere; never as an exploratory methodology. In the retail world, focus groups are unfortunately still widely used. Here are 4 common problems that can’t be solved with this technique. Assess the importance of waiting time Waiting time is an essential variable influencing customer satisfaction and profitability in a retail...
Clever store window : innovative, interactive and surprising
Shoppers are desperately in need of new, innovative and refreshing ideas in the retail sphere. Retailers have come up with tons of digital innovations inside the store, all aiming at selling more. But they forgot the enchantment part of the story. Where is the magic of the stores you visited during your childhood? Shoppers are desperate because there is no more magic; there are only strategies to sell more, to tie you up and increase your...
Le Substore : Heineken opens its popup store in Paris
It’s been quite a long time we haven’t been reporting about remarkable popup stores. Not that we didn’t want but we actually didn’t spot anything really exciting. We took the chance to visit the Substore, Heineken’s popup store opened in Paris (19 rue de la Verrerie) from 20 november until 20 december. The Substore was created and built around one new product brought out by Heineken : a personal beer pump (called LeSub) manufactured by Krups and...
Retail: 4 mistakes that will make your customers leave your store
In those days of showrooming (browsing shoppers) it has never been so important to ensure your customer is satisfied and stays in the stores. Those 4 mistakes will certainly make your customers leave your store right away. Make sure you avoid them ! 1. Waiting time too long People hate queues; be it for check out of to try clothes, you should avoid at all means that your customers must wait. Did you know that in...
HNGRY : visionary entrepreneur launches new retail concept in Antwerp
Sometimes you don’t need to go very far to meet some inspiring people. In the past I used to go abroad to meet visionary entrepreneurs (like Enric Ruiz Geli in Barcelona or Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria in Paris); this time I made a great encounter in Antwerp. I was planning to spend an hour in Antwerp discussing a new retail concept. I ended up returning home 5 hours later. Let’s meet together Thierry Peeters, the founder of...
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