A place is an expression of a vision. It conveys feeling, energy, ideas and passions.
It tells you who is living the house.
Place is not only about architectural sensibility or elaborate concepts. It also about creating the intangible -- a welcoming, nurturing feeling, crafted experiences and services that reflect customers' needs. There are places that instantly convey a community and cultural sense of belonging. And there are places that don't.
Today, people increasingly rely on digital providers for basic shopping needs and visit stores to obtain information, to meet people, to share ideas and experience with other customers, to learn something. Essentially, to go to physical retail places to have human connections often lost in a digital experience.
Customers patronize establishments and brands to be part of a group or a brand COMMUNITY made up by followers, clients but also stakeholders, makers traders and so on.
Increasingly enamored with technology, retailers are thinking to equip stores with tech.
Would you be surprised to learn that, according to a recent global study conducted by ORACLE involving 1,200 customers and 400 retail executives, clients do not want to shop in an excessively monitored and AI enhanced environments?
Stores today SIMPLY need to be more open and welcoming. As ELISABETH SEGRAN said in Fast Company : "stores needed to specialize in the things we cannot get online: fantastic ambiance, human expertise, perhaps even a plush seating area and a glass of champagne, so we can discover new products in the most luxurious way possible.".
And, I add, stay longer, come back, meet people.
Great spaces foster communities. Successful retail practitioners have emphasized the openness of stores. The vision of OLIVETTI who, with SCARPA, BBPR and others, has introduced the idea of stores as showrooms, product as craft to discover reducing the distance between sales personnel and patrons.
One of the hallmarks of the APPLE store experience is its legion of impeccable customer service advisors available to reply to clients’ questions and needs (or so it was).
LULULEMON was probably the first vertical brand organizing programs targeted to the community, introducing educators not only to discuss product qualities but also to share the latest in yoga practice.
Some of the most innovative digitally native brands have conceived their 'space' as a meeting point for the clients community: think of GLOSSIER and its real people’s real routines.
Others as GRAB, a Singapore ride hailing service, and BUKALAPACK an Indonesian online multi-model platform, have successfully extended their community to include partners, suppliers and 3 party distribution businesses in a collaborative ecosystem expressing itself on-line as well was off-line through curate spaces and events opportunities in a 'hyperlocal' dimension.
It works, It’s fun and it’s what we need in the loneliness of digital living.