When experiential retail meets business goals

Experience by its very nature implies something intangible and sensory. In the retail design context, how do you make something like experience serve the business objectives of a brand? And in today’s times when experience can many things - for the physical to the virtual, how do you ensure it offers some tangible returns? Angela Kreutz, CEO, blocher partners India, shares some perspectives in this regard.

- Angela Kreutz

The world in which we live is in a state of constant change – and is marvelously diverse and dynamic in the process. Although digitisation has changed our behaviour in all manner of ways, and will continue to influence it, it would seem that, for all this, one thing has never changed, namely the wish to be able to touch things.

Despite all the online offerings we continue to head downtown to buy something and for the sake of the experience. We quite evidently still always want to have things in our hands, smell them, feel them, speak with people, and in turn shares those experiences with our friends – albeit by virtual means.

The location, the store, is infused with all these stories relating to human encounters, and to all the feelings that you may have there. This makes it all the more apparent what task the interior architects have in all this: We want to render design tangible in the stores precisely because they are part of a much larger world of shopping that no longer distinguishes between online and bricks and mortar.