Previously, store was just a place to store and sales. Nowadays, in the digital generation , stores need to tell stories.
And it has to be highly visual and can be shared immediately, in other words: “It can be captured and posted to Instagram”
When the Instagram’s popularity booms, brands and retail stores need to find the way to attract attentions of social networking to stores which sell their products.
Visual merchandising has always been a part of the success of retails, since the late 1800s and when the glasses of display windows were widely popularized. But this new trend is more than just a visual sale. it’s “creating a visual moment”, that means creating perfect moment for a picture.
One of the best examples of this trend is a retail store called “Story” in New York (US). Story was found by Rachel Schechtman, who has “the perspective of a magazine, can change like a showroom, sell things like a store”. Every four to eight weeks, the store is completely rearranged to tell a different story, bringing a new reason for visiting the shop’s spaces, offering opportunities for capturing and uploading to Instagram.
Pop-ups stores are pushing retailers to focus more on displaying pictures and motivating consumers to share them. Last holiday season in New York, Candlepower Store of Yankee Candle wasn’t just a temporary candle store. The store displays a series of carefully designed motifs for customers to take photos and post them. Prive Revaux store which specializes in eyeglasses and designed sunglasses in New York also did the same thing. The store displays blue backgrounds with decorations that look like clouds in the window.
This week, I visted the Samsung 837 store in Meatpacking District, New York,
with Zach Overton – Samsung’s Vice President who experience the customer & General Manager of the Samsung 837 and Galaxy Studios said that the shop is a true “experience center”. Overton shared that he always thoughts: “Are the experiences we create worth taking and posting on Instagram? They need to be personal and motivate others to share them. ” When I took a photo of “AR emoji” and shared it on Instagram, I fully agree that the experience there met the criteria that set by the management.
When brands and retailers build store spaces in the future, they need to proficient creating valuable images right at the store, as well as proficient in pre-sales, because the Instagram’s proficient buyers want it.
ADI-Digi is an independent management consultancy dedicated to creating value for ADI Group, its customers and external companies that seek to improve their Marketing, Digital Marketing platform performance.