How Retailers Are Pushing the Boundaries
Top brands are incorporating entertainment experiences to attract new customers and push the limits of traditional retail.
“Retail is continuing to evolve,” Carlos Lopez, EVP at Hanley Investment Group, tells GlobeSt.com. “In some markets, we are seeing experiential retail, which is a very popular push as well as entertainment experiences. We are also seeing tenants with new formats and pushing the boundaries of traditional retail.” Several brands are joining this trend, from Capital One, which has launched cafes, to furniture store RH and Lexus. Capital One’s café model allows customers and non-customers to come and hangout. “We now have Capital One Cafés Banking Reimagined, where people can come into a bank, make a transaction and then sit and enjoy a cup of Peet’s Coffee, tea or a snack,” Lopez says. “You don’t even have to be a Capital One customer. There are no bank tellers there. Capital One calls them “Ambassadors.” With free Wi-Fi, plenty of access to charging stations and some semiprivate nooks, it’s a great place where you can focus on work or find room to collaborate. There are also money coaches that offer free one-on-one coaching to the public.”
Furniture retailer RH has also incorporated a food and eatery experience to customers with rooftop restaurants. “In the past, we didn’t go eat at the hottest restaurant in town where we could also purchase the furniture we sat and ate on. Well, this is what RH—formerly known as Restoration Hardware—is doing,” says Lopez. “RH is blurring the lines between residential and retail, indoors and outdoors, home and hospitality—an experience that activates all of the senses and can’t be replicated online.”
This trend is popping up in select markets, but it also takes a singular, boutique approach to each location. “Each RH location is unique but many of the new flagship, “gallery” locations offer a rooftop restaurant, wine & barista bar, interior design firm and atelier, and art installations,” says Lopez. “It is not a retail store as much as it is where people can come and imagine their own life and what they want in it. From the product to the integration of the hospitality, and the people, RH has created something that is truly one of a kind.”
It isn’t all about food and restaurants. Lexus has also joined the experiential world, but rather than creating gathering spaces through food, it is opted to create the lifestyle experience of owning a Lexus. “Lexus is not only thinking out of the box, but it created a whole new box,” says Lopez. “Spanning three floors and 16,500 square feet, Intersect by Lexus is a unique, permanent space in select global cities where people can experience ‘the ethos of the Lexus lifestyle’ without getting behind the steering wheel of a Lexus. Neither a dealership nor a traditional retail space, Intersect by Lexus is a place for guests to be ‘entertained, inspired and educated,’ so says the company.
Like the other two brands, Lexus is also targeting select brands for its experience. “In Tokyo, Dubai and now in New York’s Meatpacking District, Intersect by Lexus serves as a creative space where ideas and people converge,” says Lopez.