Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1055939
DING DONG, RETAIL IS NOT DEAD. It is estimated that 80 percent of purchases are still made in brick-and-mortar stores*. And "experiential retail" is the buzz term du jour. Experiential can mean things such as Instagram-ready merchandising or the use of tech such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality. It can also mean exactly what it sounds like — offering an experience to your consumer. As NPD Group describes experiential retail: "Generally it refers to a store in which stuff happens in addition to selling and shoppers do things besides buying. The idea is that a retailer offers consumers a chance to buy an experi- ence rather than just an object or service." When online behemoth Amazon started opening up retail locations, you had to figure there was something about this whole brick- and-mortar retail strategy worth checking out. Not quite an Amazon, but quite influential, the outdoor men's lifestyle e-tailer Huckberry recently opened a pop-up shop in New York City. Timed to coincide with holiday sales, the store aims to exceed basic retail expec- tations by making shopping an experience. Online, Huckberry is known for its curation of outdoor offerings. In the store environ- ment, Huckberry looks to curate experiences. Offerings include seven actionable adventures — travel plans, along with the items shoppers should bring on their trips. These adventure itineraries range from a West Village Drinking Tour with Jack Kerouac to 72 Hours In Iceland. Customers get an itinerary as well as insider perks at select stops (savings and VIP treatment). This is cool. But retailers can (and do) kill it with slightly less extravagant experi- ential offerings, too. We're talking experiences such as in-store yoga, bike repair classes, group runs and the like. What's old is new. — Cara Griffin December 2018 ~ Sports Insight • 19 sportsinsightmag.com Pop Culture * Source: Pew Research. SPORTING GOODS AND POP CULTURE are having a moment. This gamechanger is not just about the "power" of products such as video games, super hero characters and retro TV series. It's about their growing presence in the active market. Athletic brands are selling licensed gear that goes outside the realm of sports and way into pop cul- ture. (Pictured at right: Puma's collaboration with Hasbro on Transformers sneakers.) Foot Locker recently opened up a concept shop online and inside its Times Square New York store called Pop by Foot Locker. The Pop shop sells items such as toy LeBron James figurines by Funko, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures by Kidrobot, Star Wars socks from Stance, WWE graphic tees by Ripple Junction and Marvel snapbacks by New Era. The shop features exclusive items, too, such as a recent apparel launch that combines the Marvel Black Panther franchise and the late hip-hop legend Tupac in a collab. Foot Locker is just the latest big retailer to carve out store space for pop-culture collectibles. As Bloomberg recently reported, in the wake of Toys R Us's demise, retailers see an opening to use store space previously devoted to other items (such as CDs and DVDs at Walmart/Target). In October, Walmart debuted a dedicated collectibles section in 3500 of its stores. — Cara Griffin Experiential Retail "Retailers are carving out space for collectibles." "Experiential Retail can mean exactly what it sounds like — offering an experience to your consumer."