Experiential Retail Design is Drawing Customers Back to Brick and Mortar

The recent boom in online sales has left traditional retailers looking for new ways to draw customers back to stores. Research is suggesting that the retail experience is the way of the future. In this blog post, we will explore how experiential design affects customer behavior when they are shopping in-store, ultimately leading to consumer brand loyalty.

Experiential retail is a form of shopping that goes beyond the traditional purchase of goods and services. Instead, experiential retail creates an immersive shopping experience for customers, designed to engage their senses and emotions in order to create memorable experiences and foster stronger connections with the merchandise on display. Experiential retail focuses on creating an emotional connection between customers and merchandise by making use of innovative displays, lighting, soundscapes, interactive features, digital technology, and more. By doing so, experiential retail helps to drive customer engagement with the store’s products while providing unique opportunities for brand storytelling through experience-driven merchandise display.

According to the Journal of Retailing article, Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place, a firm’s heritage, product development, customized services, and exclusive and future product lines are displayed as a means to experience the brand in an extraordinary way, adding to what consumers already know from traditional brand touchpoints. The article, An exploration of consumers’ experiences in physical stores: comparing consumers’ and retailers’ perspectives in past and present time, shared research that suggests that it is more important than ever to understand the multidimensional character of the store. One of those characteristics is the way in which merchandise is displayed.

Experiential retail provides customers with a journey, from the moment they enter the store to the moment they leave. Through experiential design, stores can use different features such as interactive displays, art sculptures, soundscapes, lighted display elements, and digital kiosks to engage their customers and create a unique shopping experience. For example, experiential-driven merchandise displays can utilize innovative lighting solutions, colors, and textures to evoke particular emotions in customers. By doing so, experiential retail encourages shoppers to interact with the merchandise rather than simply browsing it passively.

Overall, experiential retail provides stores with an opportunity to create a unique and engaging shopping experience for their customers. By utilizing experiential design, stores can better engage their customers and create lasting emotional connections with their merchandise. The experiential-driven merchandise display also offers valuable opportunities for brand storytelling that help to differentiate the store from its competitors. Through experiential retail, stores can create an experiential journey for their customers that will leave a lasting impression and encourage repeat visits.

At Worlds of Wow, we transform retail environments into a three-dimensional embodiment of your brand. We create spaces that unify your culture and deliver your brand experience to your customers in a way that drives loyalty. We do this by designing, fabricating, and professionally installing customized immersive worlds specifically for your brick-and-mortar. Our retail interior designers take your target customer into account when creating the right design for your store.