NY City Retail Tour: Reinvention, innovation and inspiration

Branded environments are assorted, intent-driven and constantly evolving. They also are foundational to our economic system and society. Heck, even the metaverse wants brick & mortar merchants.

And they fascinate us at Miller Zell.

Which is why we often host retail tours for purchasers, most lately in New York Metropolis, exactly where we sought out the spark of reinvention, innovation and inspiration.

Our curated tour stops weren’t entirely focused only on the most recent, shiniest pennies. They also stand for a wide selection of retail environments that are appropriate to our clientele and share one trait in prevalent: prioritizing buyer knowledge.

Along the way, we saw issues our clients should not do. But we gathered a great deal of sound takeaways, which includes all those targeted on the gains of:

• Item bundling
• Suggestive marketing
• Digital integration
• Merchandise elevation
• Expressing knowledge
• Remedies promoting

REI Flagship

The 39,000-sq.-foot, 3-stage REI Flagship on Lafayette Avenue is an architecturally significant creating in SoHo. The previous-faculty sense of it supports the REI brand name, which communicates veteran skills that can serve the two the skilled and beginner outside particular person.

REI takes delight in its maintenance/consulting products and services — biking? ski/snowboard? tenting? — and pairing those with accurate know-how, bundling goods for outdoor adventures with SMEs who meet up with consumers at “genius-like” specialty bars with a roll-up-their-sleeves, personalized expertise. They can capably prescribe a product or service for an professional rock climber with a precise want or outfit a beginner for a to start with-ever loved ones camping vacation.

What’s important for a store like REI? Excellent, informed associates providing actionable assistance and suggestions, who then are supported by a retail outlet setting that encourages and augments these alternatives.

Dyson Demo Retail outlet

Dyson only has five standalone suppliers, so its Demo Retail outlet on 5th Avenue nearly capabilities as a headquarters. Its objective is simple: celebrate the brand’s mix of “art-in addition-science-additionally-engineering” technique and display why its solutions are the best at what they do.

And when numerous would to begin with determine Dyson as a maker of higher-tech vacuums, their best new offering at the Demo Retail store — hair styling — highlights their trending goods: Dyson Airwrap™ stylers and Dyson Supersonic™ hair dryers.

“Hero Agents” participate in a twin position of in-store associates and hosts for online chats. They show items and facilitate omnichannel buys — even offering complimentary present wrapping.

The takeaway from a Dyson Demo Shop is how Dyson products and solutions operate, and Dyson is convinced that expertise will elevate its products and solutions in the marketplace, improve gross sales and create brand name loyalty.

Nike Flagship

The Nike Flagship retail store on 5th Avenue celebrates itself as “The House of Innovation,” and the “Ultimate Nike Store,” one that delivers “a peek powering the curtain of Nike innovation.”

The keep presents a juice bar for members — also no cost with purchases — a customization house that allows customers to personalize goods, a flooring that includes Nike “experts” who can offer information on “all points sport and style” and self-checkout.

It is an immersive encounter that will check a lot of boxes for individuals who currently are brand advocates. It also will satisfy individuals who want to search for an extended time period, as nicely as provide mission-driven prospects in search of unique products for invest in.

Nordstrom Nearby West Village

This is a reinvention of a Nordstrom “store” as a manufacturer ambassador that potential customers with expert services, not on-web page gross sales. Its income concentration is on BOPIS or curbside pickup, like an aged Sears Roebuck store’s pickup, only reimagined for the 21^st century.

It features tailoring/alterations, expedited returns — its individual and other on-line vendors — and model advice. It also, notably, facilitates outfits donations, thereby tangibly serving its local community.

Even more, it is proven adaptable when experiments do not get the job done, this kind of as when an on-website shoe cobbler service was removed mainly because it did not get much traction with customers.

Google Retail store

What could show the value of brick & mortar extra than a retail store developed by the firm that manufactured its international identify as an world-wide-web look for engine?

The Google Retailer in Chelsea, which opened in the summer of 2021, is all about palms-on solution activities. It delivers shoppers a chance to “Experience all components designed by Google — Pixel, Nest, Stadia, Fitbit, Pixelbook — fingers-on and in‑action, and see how all our goods occur alongside one another.”

The expectation is that if buyers enter an immersive Google experience, these kinds of as witnessing the helpfulness of Nest items in a simulated residing space, they will be won about.

In sum, this store strategically delivers product or service demonstrations of electronic integration that ultimately turn into answers promoting to buyers.

Further more, Google sights this, its initial retail store, as a check case, as it eagerly solicits client suggestions to improve the all round practical experience.

Lucid

Lucid Motors flagship “store” in the Meatpacking District is not about selling its new EV automobiles. In truth, it can not offer out of this locale.

This showroom is about creating the manufacturer as an upscale competitor to Tesla, as an EV that upgrades driving functionality and progressive technological innovation. The strategy is that consumers who see, understand about and practical experience what Lucid is giving in conditions of innovation, engineering and conclusion-to-conclusion knowledge will instantly covet the new brand name in what figures to be an intensely aggressive sector heading ahead.

Whereupon they can use the readily available technological innovation — in-store or on the internet at-home — to customise and then purchase a new vehicle for supply.

Bed Bath & Over and above Flagship

The two-degree, 92,000-square-foot store in Chelsea reinvents Bed Tub & Beyond’s previously products and solutions-overflowing retailer layouts with improved sightlines, wayfaring and encounters, though also trying to superior fuse digital and bodily retail journeys.

The aisles are broader, primary shop maps evidently communicate on SEG (silicon edge graphics), and brand displays/vignettes crack up site visitors patterns and aid suggestive advertising.

The retail store presents a variety of merchandising encounters, organized by home, and store-within just-a-retail outlet partnerships, these as a single with Casper. A “simplehuman” room for an in-dwelling manufacturer at the top rated of the escalator feels distinct and perfectly-executed.

Customers also can use the Bed Bathtub & Over and above cellular app in-retailer for navigation and products data as very well as a “scan-and-buy” solution that enables shoppers to bypass the checkout line.

These updates are client-centric and experiential, offering purchasers fingers-on curated solutions and greater relieve with electronic integration.

Reddy Store (Petco)

Petco’s “Reddy Shop” on Prince Road in SoHo is billed as a “downtown boutique the place you can shop the freshest Reddy fashion and check out new activities together” with your pets.

It brings together higher-end pet gear with a pledge to target on sustainability (“85% of our designs are developed with plastic from recycled bottles.”).

There are also localization and curated companies — free of charge “pup cups” — that are geared toward building loyal, repeat buyers. (In truth, our crew obtained a passionate, on-the-location testimonial from a client).

This Petco sub-brand name presents a nicely-identified retailer a diverse touchpoint for buyer interaction and testing products and solutions.

And, finally….

The Protein Bakery