New Retail Bustaurant
About Trends in Retail
Not satisfied with the “Taco Truck” as a mobile restaurant. Travis Schmidt and Jason Freeman went and bought a Vintage Double Decker. America's first new retail bustaurant was created.After months of kitchen design, and months of redesign the bus has been built! The buildout was like watching a 6 month episode of “Pimp My Ride”. A full kitchen on the bottom, with rooftop dining open air! The “carrera marble” countertops make street food feel civilized if not refined (this seems to be quite a trend in retail these days.) Los Angeles is often referred to as a “melting pot”
Bustaurant
The new retail bustaurant serves a variety of dishes from our gourmet Blackboard specials to our dessert creations and “street drinks” served in a bag. The BusTaurant staple is the Bunny Chows. Originally a South African street worker food; a hollowed out loaf of bread with filled with chicken curry, Chef Andi has taken the concept to a new level as a portable easy-to-eat medium for serving different flavors from around the world.
Bunnychow
Retailer must draw attention
Let’s admit it; most retail stores are simply boring. Walk through any shopping precinct and the majority of stores will never catch your attention. Can anything be done? In this age of instant messaging and fast communication it is critical that a retailer works hard to draw attention to the store, and to hold that attention when the customer walks in the door.
I remember, years ago, being told about a homewares store in Chicago that had stunned one of our suppliers on a recent trip. When I visited Crate and Barrel later that year I was unprepared for the radically different way in which the merchandise was presented. Here was a combination of a retail store, a gallery, a warehouse and a theatre. Merchandise was carefully placed on rough-hewn crates alongside beautifully crafted dining tables. Product was both massed and delicately laid out at the same time. Most, but not all, merchandise was color-coded.
Does your store window, does your store entrance, does your store interior evoke an emotional response from customers?
It is no longer enough to be a mini-warehouse of quality goods; a retail store must instantly appeal to one (or preferably all) of the five senses; touch, sight, smell, sound and taste. That’s why, if you love coffee, you react to the smell of roasting coffee beans; and why some stores build a venting system that distributes the aroma both inside and outside the store.
It’s why some florists present gorgeous arrangements (visually color coded) right in the window, and then create a floral garden inside the store. Some florists are even spraying scent (perhaps, rose scent) into the interior of the shop.
It’s why the best chocolate shops offer you a sample on entry, and reveal a myriad of their chocolate making trays to encourage you to experiment (sight, taste, smell).
It’s why the Bakers Delight stores use the smell of baking bread to entice customers, and then tries to extend the customer’s purchase by offering taste-size samples of varieties of bread, scrolls and buns. But there’s one more thing.
It is quite possible to lay out a store in a beautiful way and still not draw attention. That’s because little thought has been given to lighting. Retailers need to think like theatrical impresarios who, when they present a ballet, an opera or a play use lower levels of lighting across the stage so that spot-lights cleverly high-light the points of drama.
Your challenge, as a retailer, is to demand attention, to stand out in the crowd of retail sameness; to do it in a way that enhances your reputation with loyal customers, and at the same time surprises potential customers who are strolling down the pavement or the mall, with no particular intention to buy.
Visit our Retail Consulting Website for expert advice!
I remember, years ago, being told about a homewares store in Chicago that had stunned one of our suppliers on a recent trip. When I visited Crate and Barrel later that year I was unprepared for the radically different way in which the merchandise was presented. Here was a combination of a retail store, a gallery, a warehouse and a theatre. Merchandise was carefully placed on rough-hewn crates alongside beautifully crafted dining tables. Product was both massed and delicately laid out at the same time. Most, but not all, merchandise was color-coded.
Does your store window, does your store entrance, does your store interior evoke an emotional response from customers?
It is no longer enough to be a mini-warehouse of quality goods; a retail store must instantly appeal to one (or preferably all) of the five senses; touch, sight, smell, sound and taste. That’s why, if you love coffee, you react to the smell of roasting coffee beans; and why some stores build a venting system that distributes the aroma both inside and outside the store.
It’s why some florists present gorgeous arrangements (visually color coded) right in the window, and then create a floral garden inside the store. Some florists are even spraying scent (perhaps, rose scent) into the interior of the shop.
It’s why the best chocolate shops offer you a sample on entry, and reveal a myriad of their chocolate making trays to encourage you to experiment (sight, taste, smell).
It’s why the Bakers Delight stores use the smell of baking bread to entice customers, and then tries to extend the customer’s purchase by offering taste-size samples of varieties of bread, scrolls and buns. But there’s one more thing.
It is quite possible to lay out a store in a beautiful way and still not draw attention. That’s because little thought has been given to lighting. Retailers need to think like theatrical impresarios who, when they present a ballet, an opera or a play use lower levels of lighting across the stage so that spot-lights cleverly high-light the points of drama.
Your challenge, as a retailer, is to demand attention, to stand out in the crowd of retail sameness; to do it in a way that enhances your reputation with loyal customers, and at the same time surprises potential customers who are strolling down the pavement or the mall, with no particular intention to buy.
Visit our Retail Consulting Website for expert advice!
Retail store experience
We love great retail. We want to find it; we use it as therapy, as entertainment, as an escape, as fantasy. Yet great retail stores are much scarcer than mediocre stores. We all can list many stores that underwhelm us, yet we visit them daily. Mostly, because we must. Just think of your run-of-the mill grocery store, convenience store, drug store, gas station, department store, big box. Even the newest “concept” versions of many brands are bland, boring and basic; designed for the retailer and its suppliers, not the consumer. They are designed and re-designed without challenging old retail “truths,” and so the result is the same old.
We as consumers shop for two broad reasons: Either because we must, or because want to. We have resigned to the fact that when we shop for items we must buy – gasoline, medicine, food – the stores will not look great. And yet, we’d most likely prefer shopping at a gas station that isn’t scary, dirty, neon-lit and dull, or in a drug store that doesn’t look like a warehouse for the most powerful brands. Even in today’s multi-channel environment where consumers can stay at home and shop for necessities online, many retailers still assume that consumers don’t notice or care.
Mass-appeal stores – including gas stations, grocery, convenience and department stores – have a much wider target audience than a niche boutique, and the two groups’ challenges are different, but a consumer who shops for food does not suddenly forget his or her experience in a niche shop.
The expectations, or at least the knowledge of a great experience goes everywhere with the consumer. As business people, and as consumers, we know that retail today is more challenging and complicated than ever. Consumers shop less and demand more from each experience. They spend less and demand more value. In all categories and at all price levels, consumers look for value in the end, but value is not the same as cheap.
Value is defined by the consumer as: Is it really worth my time, attention, money? The joy, prestige and pleasure produced by a newly acquired tech-toy or pair of shoes – expensive as they may be – make them worth the price to the consumer. And if the shopping experience was awesome, we have something more to tell our friends.
Regardless of segment or even price, today’s power retail is all about authenticity, consistency and experience. Retailers must be nimble and adaptable, and evolve with consumers’ tastes and needs. Consumers can find everything online, so the in-store experience must give them something that is much, much better. Stores must be relevant, engaging, fresh. They must offer an emotional connection, interaction, excitement. As long as our list of underwhelming stores may be, we all know some wonderful stores we’ve experienced.
If you talk about your list of such favorites, most likely you will end up telling a story. It will be about the experience in the store: The way it looks, smells or feels. It will be about the staff behavior, the music, the selection, the philosophy, the brands, the changes, the activities. It has been a memorable experience in a good way. It has made an impression. You were — and are – emotionally engaged. Whether the store is specialized in high-end fashion, cool skateboards, discount foods, knock-down furniture or exclusive art books, to the customer the overall honesty of the offering is what will bring us back. Will the components match? Is it all on the same page? Is it authentic? Can we trust them to deliver the same or more again?
Today’s customer can spot an empty shell and a fake, fluffy concept easily, and when the novelty of such “concepts” wears off, the customer has no reason to return A retail store is not a concept, neither is it a brand. It is just one channel, one way of expressing whatever it is the consumer understands the promise to be, whatever the consumer feels the experience is going to add to his or her life. Branding, marketing, store design, merchandise selection, staff behavior, the windows, the change rooms, the website, the wrapping paper and bags, plus a million other details make up that promise, and every store visit either renews or shatters the trust.
Today, with word-of-mouth sped up by social media, bad news travels faster than ever. That can be a serious challenge, because a single bad experience can blow up and become headline news. But good news travels faster than ever as well, and that poses another challenge to retailers. More often than not, the customer knows more about the brand, the products, and most important, the competition, than the staff. People do not need to travel the world to know about the latest, the newest, the coolest, and the best. Customers have seen more exciting stores, more creative marketing and more fun products than perhaps the typical store staff or even the managers. And if the customer is more enthusiastic and knowledgeable than the sales person, then the customer will not receive “knowledgeable service” no matter what the promotions promise.
When we encounter a fantastic retail store today – a store that we feel is worthy of our attention, time and money – we are really seeing a minor miracle and a major business feat. We should tell the world about it and we should demand more of it. Retailing is an extremely complicated and well-researched business, yet succeeding in it is still perhaps closer to magic than anything else.
Visit our Retail Consulting Website for expert advice!
We as consumers shop for two broad reasons: Either because we must, or because want to. We have resigned to the fact that when we shop for items we must buy – gasoline, medicine, food – the stores will not look great. And yet, we’d most likely prefer shopping at a gas station that isn’t scary, dirty, neon-lit and dull, or in a drug store that doesn’t look like a warehouse for the most powerful brands. Even in today’s multi-channel environment where consumers can stay at home and shop for necessities online, many retailers still assume that consumers don’t notice or care.
Mass-appeal stores – including gas stations, grocery, convenience and department stores – have a much wider target audience than a niche boutique, and the two groups’ challenges are different, but a consumer who shops for food does not suddenly forget his or her experience in a niche shop.
The expectations, or at least the knowledge of a great experience goes everywhere with the consumer. As business people, and as consumers, we know that retail today is more challenging and complicated than ever. Consumers shop less and demand more from each experience. They spend less and demand more value. In all categories and at all price levels, consumers look for value in the end, but value is not the same as cheap.
Value is defined by the consumer as: Is it really worth my time, attention, money? The joy, prestige and pleasure produced by a newly acquired tech-toy or pair of shoes – expensive as they may be – make them worth the price to the consumer. And if the shopping experience was awesome, we have something more to tell our friends.
Regardless of segment or even price, today’s power retail is all about authenticity, consistency and experience. Retailers must be nimble and adaptable, and evolve with consumers’ tastes and needs. Consumers can find everything online, so the in-store experience must give them something that is much, much better. Stores must be relevant, engaging, fresh. They must offer an emotional connection, interaction, excitement. As long as our list of underwhelming stores may be, we all know some wonderful stores we’ve experienced.
If you talk about your list of such favorites, most likely you will end up telling a story. It will be about the experience in the store: The way it looks, smells or feels. It will be about the staff behavior, the music, the selection, the philosophy, the brands, the changes, the activities. It has been a memorable experience in a good way. It has made an impression. You were — and are – emotionally engaged. Whether the store is specialized in high-end fashion, cool skateboards, discount foods, knock-down furniture or exclusive art books, to the customer the overall honesty of the offering is what will bring us back. Will the components match? Is it all on the same page? Is it authentic? Can we trust them to deliver the same or more again?
Today’s customer can spot an empty shell and a fake, fluffy concept easily, and when the novelty of such “concepts” wears off, the customer has no reason to return A retail store is not a concept, neither is it a brand. It is just one channel, one way of expressing whatever it is the consumer understands the promise to be, whatever the consumer feels the experience is going to add to his or her life. Branding, marketing, store design, merchandise selection, staff behavior, the windows, the change rooms, the website, the wrapping paper and bags, plus a million other details make up that promise, and every store visit either renews or shatters the trust.
Today, with word-of-mouth sped up by social media, bad news travels faster than ever. That can be a serious challenge, because a single bad experience can blow up and become headline news. But good news travels faster than ever as well, and that poses another challenge to retailers. More often than not, the customer knows more about the brand, the products, and most important, the competition, than the staff. People do not need to travel the world to know about the latest, the newest, the coolest, and the best. Customers have seen more exciting stores, more creative marketing and more fun products than perhaps the typical store staff or even the managers. And if the customer is more enthusiastic and knowledgeable than the sales person, then the customer will not receive “knowledgeable service” no matter what the promotions promise.
When we encounter a fantastic retail store today – a store that we feel is worthy of our attention, time and money – we are really seeing a minor miracle and a major business feat. We should tell the world about it and we should demand more of it. Retailing is an extremely complicated and well-researched business, yet succeeding in it is still perhaps closer to magic than anything else.
Visit our Retail Consulting Website for expert advice!
Is our city shopping street still attractive?
Boring, boring!
Our associates and myself walked the city shopping streets of Europe recently. A disheartening experience , to say it mildly. Europe’s shopping streets and to a large degree the USA and its malls too, are rapidly becoming one great yawn.
Where are the retail entrepreneurs with guts? Where are the true retailers that are prepared to take a risk? How on earth have we allowed our shopping experience to become so uniform?
Clearly the "I do what you are doing but will try to do it better", has become the credo for executives in the worlds multiple retail store groups. Innovation and creativity are out, it seems!
Walking the streets of Europe (or the malls of the US) all fashion houses are now interchangeable – with a few exceptions- if you take away from the front all the brands no consumer would know who’s store they would be entering. Where are the innovators who dare to push some boundries?
Take any main shopping street in Europe:
Speciality shops... none! A market survey done recently gave a percentage of 1,5% of all retailshops as independent.
In a recent article in a leading newspaper in the Benelux a warning (again?) was sounded that the variety of shops was quickly diminishing in the European highstreet. The warning was voiced by a leading retail property developer Corio. How corny can you get? It are these developers that have created a level of rent that is no longer sustainable for independents and smaller start up – innovators .
Seems that the thiefs are complaining that the goods were left unattended and that it allowed them
to steal...
It is clear that we have entered a period of shopping street (ice age) boredom and it is therefore not surprising to notice the massive sales increases the webshops are achieving nowadays.
Our associates and myself walked the city shopping streets of Europe recently. A disheartening experience , to say it mildly. Europe’s shopping streets and to a large degree the USA and its malls too, are rapidly becoming one great yawn.
Where are the retail entrepreneurs with guts? Where are the true retailers that are prepared to take a risk? How on earth have we allowed our shopping experience to become so uniform?
Clearly the "I do what you are doing but will try to do it better", has become the credo for executives in the worlds multiple retail store groups. Innovation and creativity are out, it seems!
Walking the streets of Europe (or the malls of the US) all fashion houses are now interchangeable – with a few exceptions- if you take away from the front all the brands no consumer would know who’s store they would be entering. Where are the innovators who dare to push some boundries?
Take any main shopping street in Europe:
- Fashion ( all looking alike )
- Perfumery ( all looking alike )
- Shoes ( all looking alike )
- Coffee shops (all looking alike )
- Telephone and mobile phone shops ( all looking alike )
Speciality shops... none! A market survey done recently gave a percentage of 1,5% of all retailshops as independent.
In a recent article in a leading newspaper in the Benelux a warning (again?) was sounded that the variety of shops was quickly diminishing in the European highstreet. The warning was voiced by a leading retail property developer Corio. How corny can you get? It are these developers that have created a level of rent that is no longer sustainable for independents and smaller start up – innovators .
Seems that the thiefs are complaining that the goods were left unattended and that it allowed them
to steal...
It is clear that we have entered a period of shopping street (ice age) boredom and it is therefore not surprising to notice the massive sales increases the webshops are achieving nowadays.
