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SITU LIVE is the home of innovation at Westfield, London. When you arrive at the venue, you embark on an immersive retail experience that focuses on educating consumers about the latest products, appliances, and advances in technology.
SITU LIVE’s lifestyle store offers shoppers the opportunity to emotionally connect with brands and products before making any financial decisions. It is illustrative of a pioneering shift toward improving the customer experience as retailers look to adapt to changing consumer shopping behaviours.
Central to SITU LIVE’s Westfield location is each of the theatres in which innovative products come to life. Customers move through the theatres to experience seriously smart products from leading brands that can enhance people’s lifestyles in myriad ways.
For instance, the Connected home theatre invites shoppers to play with a range of innovative products designed to improve the flow of the home while receiving expert advice on how to build a smart home from scratch.
In the Nutrition kitchen, resident chef, Jamie, is in situ and provides culinary inspiration to visitors while utilising the latest products and appliances from leading brands. Shoppers are welcome to watch, ask, and sample, enhancing their understanding of how kitchen products and appliances can significantly improve their home life.
Other theatres within the venue include Fit for life, On the move, PC gaming, Play, explore, and learn, Sleep and wellbeing, Work from home, and Virtual reality studio, all expertly designed and put together to create an immersive and innovative shopping experience for customers.
Furthermore, retail businesses can provide the same unique shopping experience to their customers with the help of commercial fit out companies. These companies consist of experienced artisans working hard to ensure captivating fit-out designs based on the client’s specifications. They help retail business owners attain aesthetically appealing stores to entice customers and increase revenue.
But what is the rationale behind this unique approach to shopping?
SITU LIVE’s immersive retail concept has been designed to associate brands with aspirational consumer lifestyles. Inviting shoppers to experience new products first-hand builds interconnectivity and enables shoppers to directly experience how products can transform their lives.
That’s when experiential retail comes into play.
Shopify defines experiential retail as creating memorable shopping experiences by directly engaging and inviting customers to experience the brand in person. Since consumers have become more conscious and meticulous about choosing the brands they trust, providing a meaningful in-store experience is essential.
Experiential retail involves combining products to create impacting experiences, prompting the prospect to take action. For instance, displaying beauty and wellness products in a spa-like store setting might enhance the shopper’s experience by evoking a sense of tranquility and aesthetics.
As such, customers are more likely to return to a store that offers a visually appealing and immersive experience.
Since experiential retail involves the collaboration of small businesses in the area, participating brands become exemplary role models. Consumers trust these businesses more because of their dedication to giving back to the community. Thus, lifestyle stores and retail companies change how consumers think of retail brands as mere ad gimmick leaders.
Experiential shopping is particularly appealing to Gen-Z and Millennial shoppers and speaks directly to their aspirations to experience brands and products before committing to a purchase.
The reality is that lifestyle stores have reconceptualised the way that customers can interact with products and appliances and equally educate and illustrate how innovative products can improve people’s lifestyles.
If you haven’t done so already, visit SITU LIVE’s venue at Westfield, London, to experience for yourself how lifestyle stores are revolutionising how we shop.
Reference: https://www.shopify.com/ph/retail/experiential-retail
