Aron Lieberman of Rockland Window Fashions purchased a historic home in a prime neighborhood to showcase his products.
After the purchase closed, he learned that conventional signs would not be allowed on the front lawn. Continue reading Retail Consultant Results: How to Attract Customers to Your Retail Store [Case Study] »
“Step right up, step right up and see the amazing…”
You’ve heard it in dozens of movies. I’ll bet you even saw the red and white striped jacket some of the guys wore as they shouted at passersby.
They were called carnival barkers. Their sole job was to interrupt passersby loud enough with amazing sales skills to get you to pay extra and come see the sideshow or oddball attraction.
Hold that visual…
I was reading this week’s issue of Time magazine over the shoulder of a guy in the plane row in front of me. He turned to The Groupon Clipper. While the article was touting some of the headwinds for Groupon, it also described Groupon 2.0. When we landed I had to get a copy myself.
“The next phase is hyper-local: knowing where subscribers live and what their interests are, curating their commercial experiences and sharing with friends. Think of yourself walking around with a locationally aware smart phone and Groupon knowing not just what you like but also what might pique your curiosity.”
It continued…
“To get there will require the kind of data massaging that’s well beyond the average social-shopping site. In fact, Groupon’s investors believe its strength is in its data mining and not necessarily in its consumer interface, which is easily copied. These are the algorithms that conjure perfect deals at perfect times.”
So imagine you are indeed walking down the street…
And your smartphone vibrates or talks to you or beeps you a message has been received because Groupon knew you just walked close to a GAP. Or a Thai restaurant. Or a shoe store. And delivered a “deal.” Or all of them and more hit you with competing messages to get you to come in…
Your leisurely stroll down the street becomes a carnival boardwalk where you are yelled at by an electronic carney to grab your interest to come inside. Is that going to enhance anyone’s shopping experience at bricks and mortar stores or push them over the edge and onto the ‘net?
Good question…
That’s why I wrote a manifesto: Bricks and Mortar Retail At Risk In The Digital Age: From Silicon Valley to Main Street detailing the risks and what you can do about it. You can read the introduction here or if you are ready to download and read [registration required but free] you can do so here.
Brick and mortar retailers view of the current state of retail trends alarming; from what passes for service, to the hype of online coupons and “going mobile.” If you are a C-level executive, owner or manager you are bound to hear that retail has “fundamentally changed” since the recession. It has but not how you may think.
That’s why I researched and created this manifesto detailing the great dangers that exist for brick and mortar retail along with how to fix them. Below is the setup to the special report detailing the important retail trends. To receive the full manifesto by email [registration required] click on this link, the blue graphic below, or at the end of this post and let me know your thoughts.
The Situation
Have you ever seen one of those movies like War of the Roses or American Beauty where the characters have been together a long time but don’t really talk?
You know, the old couple who dismisses the other’s feelings? The young couple ready for divorce?
They all have one thing in common, one partner became numb to the other person. After years of abuse or neglect, they feel abandoned and disempowered. Crying for someone to notice them they turned inward. Or turned to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain.
I think that is what we have done to customers in brick and mortar retail shops. Whether it is the big-box or the specialty independent retailer, we have destroyed the in-store relationship by hiring employees who have no interest in truly helping a customer or business, we have let them thrive as long as they could stack merchandise and keep the store organized.
We collectively have let customers find frustration, anger and disappointment where they once found fun, enjoyment and fulfillment.
We didn’t realize how angry they were getting.
Until…
Until the Recession occurred and Continue reading Manifesto: Brick & Mortar Retailing At Risk In The Digital Age »
Have you stopped to consider the power of visual merchandising – dressing your windows in retail?
Sure, during the holidays there are stories like this one in the Wall Street Journal on New York City’s major retailers which tout all the “high tech” aspects with movement and digital effects. And good for them!
And while Wallyg has posted some great shots of New York windows on Flikr here, I want to talk to you about Staunton, Va in the Shenandoah Valley, not far from where my mom was born.
For it is there that Robbie Lawson helped Pufferbellies Toys & Books do something amazing this holiday: give back a sense of wonder and pride, as few stores can do using their incredible visual merchandising skills.
Pufferbellies in Staunton, VA
Erin Branton the co-owner tells me how it all started. “Robbie is a family friend who works with my dad at Taylor & Boody Organbuilders near Staunton.
He and his family shop at Pufferbellies often, too. I saw some photos of a model he made of a church that they were building an organ for, and asked him if he could make gingerbread houses.
He and I and my parents (my mom, Susan is my business partner, and my dad helps with everything) sat down and talked about which buildings we’d like to feature, and Robbie went and photographed all of them before starting to build his models.
Robbie and son finishing up
One of the buildings, the Masonic, houses my brother’s gelato shop (The Split Banana) and our all-time-favorite Mexican restaurant (the Baja Bean Co.) so we HAD to feature that one! The church is Trinity Episcopal, which has a ton of history. It also has real Tiffany windows, which Robbie photographed and printed on vellum (I think) to recreate the stained-glass effect.
Co-owner Erin helping
One thing about Staunton that makes it stand out among other downtowns is that it has tons of original buildings that survived urban renewal during the last century.
There were some seriously forward-thinking people that stood up for these buildings and that helped put us ahead of the game in terms of creating a vital downtown today. So anyway, we’re nuts about downtown Staunton and wanted to do something that would honor it. ”
They came up with fake gingerbread houses built using foam board, hot glue, latex caulk and plastic candy to recreate six historic buildings. (You can see a set of 36 on Robbies Facebook page.) I’ll bet the visual merchandisers on Madison Avenue are jealous.
While these pics are amazing…
That’s not why I’m writing this.
It’s because no matter how jaded you might be at cloyingly cute holiday commercials or how sick you might be of hearing White Christmas, I’ll bet you were taken with these pictures.
No video. No Twitter feed. No digital effects…
Even with minimal merch from the toy store in the window, you, for those brief moments, became like Ralphy in A Christmas Story.
It works because so much of what we see across the retail landscape looks like this Walgreens. The windows have been filled with merchandising units which take up the lower ten feet.
Most retail development windows’ only purpose is to allow minimal natural light into the store, while cutting off the view of the outside world.
This has rendered much of modern retail design sterile, imposing and devoid of emotion.
Why does that matter?
Because well done shop windows let us do either of two things:
And that is the gift Pufferbellies and Robbie Lawson gave to the nearly 24,000 people who live in Staunton this holiday season. It’s also what Pufferbellies did when they restored their storefront with original street-level doors, window frames, moldings and trim.
When Main Street retailers talk about what independent stores do for a community, they often talk about how they “give back to the community” through donations to worthy causes.
But the one thing I think many miss is what they can give back with their creativity, love of their town and desire to see the faces of shoppers delighted and surprised.
In a world struggling with an onslaught of technology, these committed owners bring humanity back to its core. Their visual merchandising skills pulled off an amazing feeling in their retail customers.
That’s what holiday shopping is all about folks.
Not buy one get one free. Not another “friends and family” promotion or online group buying discount.
Its surprise and delight.
In your windows.
In your stores.
In your customers faces…
I was on the MSNBC Your Business program for their Halloween show. Yes, that’s me in the devil cap with trident below.
They wanted me to take a few principles from my book, The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley) and give advice to do the opposite.
It was a bit hard at first to get my head around since four of the points are:
