Retail Archives • Page 65 of 65 • Brand X Journal

The Future of Shopping May Be Underground

Tech Insider: Garden Santa Fe, a 7-story-deep underground shopping mall in Mexico City, is a peculiar hybrid of basic infrastructure needs and a re-envisioning of contemporary retail. At a time when urban real estate is a precious commodity, going underground might just be the future of shopping … The Garden Santa Fe Mall has … circular courtyards, complete with live trees at the bottom and second level of the mall, providing a release from what would otherwise be a claustrophobic environment.”

“The presence of three full story glass atriums essentially brings the outdoors to the underground … The entire building is buried 7 stories deep, making heating and cooling much more energy efficient. Overall, the mall uses 60% of the energy of a comparable retail space. An extensive rain collection system and onsite grey water treatment and water reuse system make a similar impact in water consumption.”

Ikea Reinvents Its Dining Experience

The Washington Post: “While for decades it has been part of the Ikea experience to get your new couch with a side of Swedish meatballs, Ikea’s U.S. president Lars Petersson said in a recent interview that ‘Ikea food is becoming a core business’ for the privately-held, Sweden-based company.”

“That’s why all 41 of its stateside stores are getting restaurant makeover in the next several months … the goal is to create three zones for different types of diners. One area will be outfitted with high tables and barstools suited for scarfing down a quick bite. A second will aim to be family-friendly, with activities for kids and tables for their parents to dine nearby. The third area they call ‘Fika,’ which is a Swedish word for a coffee break that involves socializing.”

“It makes sense that Ikea is investing in its food business at this particular moment: In 2015, the Commerce Department reported that restaurants saw 8.1 percent sales growth, even as the broader retail industry saw an increase of just 2.1 percent and as home furnishings stores posted a 5.8 percent increase. There’s clearly momentum in the dining category, and perhaps a fresher look and menu can help Ikea get a piece of that.”

Kola House: Pepsi Generates a New Experience

“Known for its beverages, Pepsi is now moving into the restaurant business,” The New York Times reports. “The 5,000-square-foot space — on the same block as Milk Studios in Chelsea … will become Kola House, a restaurant-bar-event space that the company hopes will be both social hub and testing ground for new products.”

Kola House “will not be plastered with the Pepsi logo or filled with Pepsi products. Everything at Kola House will be centered on the kola nut, a bitter fruit that contains caffeine and gives cola beverages their name. Essentially, Pepsi is trying to market its product without marketing its product.”

Pepsi design chief Mauro Porcini: “Consumers will love your brand because your brand enables you to have the experience, but they don’t want to have the brand in their face. It needs to be very subtle, elegant, sophisticated.”

Pepsi marketing chief Seth Kaufman: “We are in a time where we have to transform how we connect with and engage consumers. If brands don’t do that today, they will be irrelevant tomorrow, whatever tomorrow is.”

Shipping Is Never Fast (or Cheap) Enough

The Wall Street Journal: “More than nine of 10 shoppers said they considered ‘same day,’ ‘next day’ and ‘two day’ delivery to be ‘fast,’ according to consulting firm Deloitte’s 2015 holiday survey of some 4,000 shoppers. At three to four days, only 63% called it ‘fast,’ and just 18% of shoppers considered five to seven days ‘fast’.”

“And customers for the most part are no longer willing to pay extra for expedited delivery. Shoppers on average said they would pay at most just $5.10 for same-day service, in the Deloitte survey. A quarter of shoppers said they wouldn’t expect to pay anything at all.”

However, absorbing the shipping may be worth it to some online retailers because it can reduce the return rate: “When you go to a store, you have that wonderful delight of carrying the bag down the street,” says David Maddocks, chief marketing officer of Cole Haan. “Online, after you click, you have to wait. And during that time you can fall out of love.”

Co-Creation Is The New Museology

Hyperallergic: “In plain terms, across the field, in museums, art institutions, performance forums, and even historical societies, the visitor’s experience is now being personalized. This means that not only is the visit marked by enhanced, interactive, and ‘dialogic’ engagement, but also there is an institutional recognition of the visitor as an independent maker of meaning who uses the museum in a variety of ways to fulfill particular, individual needs and desires.”

“Three key means of accomplishing this is first, recognizing visitors’ capacity to make meaning for themselves; two, partnering with them to discover what they personally want from the museum; and lastly, mobilizing the museum’s resources to meet these needs. These tasks can be met by, among other things, new curatorial strategies through which museums partner with visitors to develop activities and events: co-curation projects, and crowdsourcing exhibition content.”

“Visitors are no longer passive receptacles for the curator’s knowledge, but rather active, engaged participants.”

The Bon Marché Merchandises “Poetry, Beauty, Dreams”

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has turned the Bon Marché department store in Paris into an art gallery, reports The New York Times. “Anyone needing more evidence that the distinctions between public and private, high and low, art and commerce, and actual versus Internet celebrity have now imploded beyond recognition need look no further than this example of a populist Chinese dissident artist exhibiting in a luxury department store in one of the world’s fashion capitals.”

“Why the Bon Marché? Mr. Ai said that no French museums had contacted him about organizing a show … The Bon Marché first contacted the artist in late 2014, when he was still prevented from leaving China, said Frédéric Bodenes, the store’s artistic director. Mr. Bodenes said the store was not worried about souring ties with China.”

“We’re about poetry, beauty, dreams. We’re here to entrance our customers, and there’s no politics behind it,” Mr. Bodenes said. “Art is a value-added thing that we give our clients.”