I’ve added it to Issuu so you can flick through at your leisure. Click on the centre of the presentation to go full screen, press esc to return to your original screen. If you put your cursor to the top of the screen you’ll see additional navigation.

So what do customers want and how can retailers afford to give it to them?

“We want experience, fantasy and value”

“We will not desert the High Street if retailers can make it fun.”

What will this mean, less stores more experience is my prediction – its very simple.

What does experience mean?

A different thing to each retailer is the key:

• The latest cat-walk fashion at prices I can afford. Worth searching any store environment for, e.g. Primark.
• A brand committed heart and soul to a lifestyle, a patch of a store with flowery paper is not enough, e.g. Jack Wills.
• Niche retailing with real passion about the product, e.g. Games Workshop.

The list is endless, this is what customers want – happy days spent with friends roaming our High Streets.

I suggest retailers need to concentrate on one great destination store in each city not three. Each store needs to work hard to live and breath their brand. White stuff is a great example, the York store has a cinema – I might not go but I love them for providing it! It’s a great experience (with gnomes at the moment).

I know this is just one aspect of the complex mix, that creates a profitable retailer, and there are some retailers who need have units everywhere – takeaway food retailers need to be convenient, we are lazy and lack time. But experience is the future, not the white box. For designers this means working hard to develop the brand with our retail and leisure customers at a cost that is sustainable and profitable.

The store is apparently only there for 19 days and 69 hours from Saturday 12th September.

More detail on the Wallpaper article and a slideshow. Also on Retail Week.

Five main areas are covered (with room for expansion) and the opportunity to submit your own stats.

Originally from Read Write Web via twitter

Hover over the products to see what’s still available and what’s sold. Click the browse button to see a different catalogue view.

Take a look for yourself. Supermarket Sarah.

Originally from the very excellent Design Milk

Also worth having a look at is their kiosk which opened in Westfield on Monday. Not many images online yet but no doubt they’ll start appearing soon, and the van is great too.

More Snog:

On Twitter

Snog website

Lighting article

Snog on Cinimod

As many businesses look to embrace social media at least Asda have plunged in with both feet, whilst others prevaricate; mainly I suspect because they don’t know what they’re buying and/or don’t believe it has a part to play in their organisation. I’m pretty certain that (based on the kind of work we’re doing, more than anything else) that it will be the norm for businesses to have a social media presence of some description and more importantly that the people who run this side of marketing are employees who can be authentic about their brand rather than external agencies. Patterns of employment will also have to change. There’s no point having an online presence that clocks off at 5 o’clock.

At least Asda have a catchment audience in their own employees but many organisations seem to think that user generated content (UGC) will play  large part in their social media strategy. This seems a rather lazy way out and flawed. After all if you’ve got Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc why would you go on a forum hosted by any business, it would have to be truly excellent in its own right. Organisations have to come to customers wherever they are, that’s always been the case in retail, and still the case online. Sainsbury’s forum for instance has as of today, 65,691 members but only 134 posts this month, there’s too many other things out there that are better and less brand led.

Another interesting part of Asda’s communication to their employees is that they’ve produced a poster (including a big brother mouse as a bomb, complete with fuse!) which while being rather foreboding at least shows they understand the perils of opening themselved up to the world online.

The posters, watch out for the interweb now …

Also worth looking at Asda on twitter and their YouTube channel, SYMtv (that’s Saving You Money tv)

And also worth looking at how Whole Foods run their whole online presence, as always the US is doing it better:

Whole Foods on twitter

Whole Foods Blog

The first set of pictures shows the ‘dch’ (danesi coffee house)  concept, ” … a real tasting place to experience the original Italian espresso and distribute new “coffee culture” products; each one is located in large city centres.”

What I particularly like in the interiors is the calmness and structure that’s provided by the overall colour palette but carried through to the straightforward large image that’s used and the furniture with its cutaway details and chairs with mini shelves.

My favourite feature though is the lighting, especially the lampshades that cut through the ceiling raft above the counter. All very calm and elegant. As usual it’s the attention to detail that makes places like these work.

The Danesi website is also worth a browse to see the products as well as all elements you would need to create your franchise.

The second set of pictures shows the ‘dsao’ (danesi small architectural object) concept, “a small coffee corner, conceived as independent platforms, ready to be located inside malls, airports, railway stations and trade shows.”