Retailtain me: shoppers crave fun in-store experience

12 December 2016

How to entice shoppers in-store and boost both foot traffic and sales? Focus on customer experience, make it fun and unique. Briefly, become a master of retailtainment.

How to entice shoppers in-store and boost both foot traffic and sales? Focus on customer experience, make it fun and unique. Briefly, become a master of retailtainment.

Today consumers are hard to satisfy. If you want to win their hearts, you have to do more than just selling them products. Your clients want to feel special. Think of your job as something going beyond a mere transaction and concentrate on unique and exciting customer experience. This new attitude shifts the focus from conventional stores to spaces that have a vibe of an entertainment venue.

Seducing shoppers through three senses

Era of traditional shopping malls as we know them is coming to an end. This, plus an ever-growing popularity of online shopping, may put bricks in trouble. Enriching traditional retail with experience-based attractions which online world simply cannot copy, retailtainment could be a lifeline thrown to conventional brick-and –mortar stores. Cleverly mixing entertainment and retail experiences, firms have identified ways to lure shoppers into their locations and encourage them to stay there as long as possible in the hope of boosting sales figures. What makes retailtainment really effective? It all boils down to a smart selection of exciting activities, alluring sounds, sights and smells to seduce shoppers, persuade them to pop into your store and make them feel at ease there. Modern retail cannot do without the psychology of ambience and environment as music, lighting and colour have a strong impact on shoppers’ in-store behaviour.

Diversify your in-store offering by adding non-retail activities

Several stores have already successfully applied the principles of retailtainment. By providing a variety of offerings catering to diverse needs, some of them managed to boost both foot traffic and time spent in-store. Others included a number of non-retail leisure and entertainment activities like cinema and mini-golf in their offering, turning a shopping mall into a day outing. The whole concept of retailtainment is hardly a novelty as some stores have been practicing it for a number of years now. However, it acquires a new significance in the times of a growing dominance of online stores. Diversifying in-store offering by adding non-retail attractions has been proven to increase foot traffic and purchases per person, thus considerably boosting traditional stores’ chances against their online competitors.

Source: http://www.globalrealestateexperts.com/2016/10/attracting-consumers-retailtainment/