The value of Experiential Retail Environments: insight on the existing context

Abstract

This paper investigates the value of Experiential Retail Environments (ERE’s). Insight from an initial explorative literature review was used to drive a comparative study on the notions of ‘value’ and ‘in-store experience’ and how they relate to each other. This integrated a collection of data through sets of interviews conducted with representatives of the three stakeholder groups most concerned with retail design projects: retailers, retail designers and consumers. Results show that the notions of ‘value’ and ‘experience’ remain intrinsically person-dependent but that some aspects are generally agreed upon. First, an ‘experiential store’ is perceived by all stakeholders to be a store that ‘does more’ (than sell products). It focuses on the customer experience, has a strong link to the brand and is associated with the notion of the ‘unexpected’. Second, all groups agree in-store experience is a combination of the service, the environment and the offer but the exact combination of these elements and more particularly the role of the environment varies greatly between stakeholders. Third, the topic of value generated difficulties in discussions and as such remains hard to conceptualize. However, in all cases, a strong link between in-store experience and value perceptions has been identified. Fifth, the three stakeholder groups agree that the physical environment has a key role to play in both of these. Finally, there is currently no systematic approach to experience integration in the retail design process. In most cases, experiential factors are added to a store post concept generation.