Experiential retail is an exciting way to engage with the customer beyond selling products, as it offers brands the opportunity to serve their customer community better.

FREMONT, CA: Technology has changed the way consumers shop. Today, people can buy whatever they want from wherever they are, with a click on the button. The idea of the retail store’s purpose has also changed with this. As retail stores reposition how brick-and-mortar stores fit into the customer journey, experience has become the key enabler. Stores are looking to give customers things that cannot be easily replicated online, and creating engaging experiences has become top of the list. With this, the term ’experiential shopping’ got thrown around a lot.

Experiential retail allows shoppers to know the brands well. When brands use immersive technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality to display products, shoppers will be impressed, and they are more likely to purchase. Such immersive and interactive shopping experiences can make consumers more loyal to the brand. In this way, experiential shopping represents a powerful form of advertising. When people celebrate shopping at an experiential retail store, they often recommend the place to friends and family, meaning that it increases the word-of-mouth publicity.

Retailers often ask people to digitally fill out forms to sign up for their unique features and offers, and these data can be exceedingly valuable. When data analytics is applied to those demographic details, it can lead to targeted ad campaigns. These data insights will also help in thoughtful store designs, which include more tech aids that provide enhanced experiential shopping for consumers. One thing that physical stores can do better than other channels is to engage all five senses of shoppers. Providing experiential shopping experience is a great way to forge emotional connections with customers through personalized, engaging experiences.

Shopping in-store is no longer driven by necessity, but it is now driven by a sense of discovery and the excitement of finding and experiencing something new. In-store experiences that activate customers’ senses will lead them to have a stronger emotional connection to the brand and its products. Seeing all the products in context makes it easier for customers to imagine how they could incorporate those products into their lives. By breaking away from the conventional concept of the store, brands are offering an engaging experience with experiential shopping that inspires customers.

Experiences give consumers more reasons to visit a store. If the brand can offer it with experiential shopping, they can surely win in the brick-and-mortar retail business.