How Tech Enabled ‘Store-Ex' Is Redefining Retail Design

Experience is an integral part of store design today, so is story telling that visually communicates the brand narrative.

Consumers today seek product stories and want to have a joyful experience within the store. To provide a more immersive customer experience, brands and retailers today are not only using advanced tech elements like AI enabled virtual mirrors, AI enabled robots, heat mapping etc. for various back-end and front end purposes, but are also integrating technology at the inception process. VM&RD spoke with a few brands, retail designers and tech solution providers to find out how technology is redefining store design to offer a better customer experience.

Making customer experience as personalised and relevant as possible is where retailers are placing the most emphasis on these days. As consumers choose to invest in experiences rather than products, it has become increasingly important to create an experience around the product than selling it off the shelf.

Why go experiential?

“Experience is undoubtedly the greatest player in store design. Whatever a brand decides as the experience they want to provide to the customers, the same is converted into store design and served to customers through actual execution of the concept,” says Gajpal Singh Rathore, Head VM & Projects, Arrow, Arvind Fashions Limited.”

Aasheesh Verma, Head – Store Planning & Development, Levi Strauss & Co, says, “The role of space design is to elevate the experience for any consumer, hence it’s an inherent part of the design deliverable. It deals with ambience, character of space and functionality which can’t be compromised. This is very challenging as it deals with the intangible aspect of space design.”