Clicking to buy from a retail website, TikTok, or an Instagram Reel, is about as simple and pleasurable as shopping can get. Yet that rush of serotonin can be short-lived once a buyer realizes they won’t get their hands on their shiny new item for days or even weeks. The true ping of instant gratification comes when the object you covet is yours to take home: There’s nothing like a store to plant that sensation.
Three years after the pandemic, stores are quickly turning into destinations again, buoyed by experiences that retailers are building into their square footage. Customers sip cocktails while buying their weekly groceries at Albertsons, test drive a new baseball bat at Dick’s Sporting Goods, or sample a matcha and pause to fill out a credit card application at one of dozens of Capital One Café locations nationwide. Some brands, from chic Reformation to tween pleaser Brandy Melville, even employ velvet ropes, limiting the number of shoppers that can squeeze into a shop, making the space feel more lux and the experience more limited.
“Because it’s so easy to buy something, there needs to be some other incentive or push to go to the store,” says Micki Cabral, director of research at San Francisco-based branding research firm Pilot44. “There’s still a desire to go to a physical store. People like to touch and feel things.”
The push to bring people back into stores isn’t a drive to steer shoppers away from online sales. Experts project e-commerce sales to account for more than 20 percent of total retail sales by the end of 2024, and grow to 22.6 percent by the end of 2027, according to eMarketer.
Brands are looking at retail stores to deliver a different experience, one that mixes marketing with community. Shoppers walk away with more than a haul — they leave invigorated and interested in returning to shop again, either in-person or online.
“Stores are saying, ‘We don’t mind what people are coming in for,’” says Jack Stratten, founder and head of London-based retail consultancy Insider Trends, “In some cases, they come not to buy anything, but just to get inspired. There are many potential missions.”
Designing from scratch
Inspiring customers requires more than stacking boxes on a shelf and directing buyers toward a checkout line. That’s why brands are rethinking how to design retail stores. An in-store café is unlikely to succeed if it’s shoved in a corner where ATMs once sat, for example.
“To create a new identity, you have to blow it up and start over,” says Noah Twining, director of retail strategy at interior design firm Bridgewater Studio in Chicago, which redesigned 50 Capital One Cafés across the United States to highlight the experience within, and create a new brand image. “It can’t feel like it was before.”
Capital One, the bank with the credit card known for its perks, redesigned their banks with full cafés where kombucha and grilled cheese are on the menu, the wifi is free, and concierges may assist you in finding a seat — or information about their credit cards. And other brands are using redesigned stores to shift their image as well. Wayfair, the online discount seller, opened a new 150,000-square-foot shop in the Wilmette suburb of Chicago at the end of May. Reformation Hardware rebranded as RH, relaunched its stores (called “galleries”) in landmarked properties around the globe, with exclusive restaurants and wine bars throughout 40,000+-square foot spaces that serve as draws of their own.
Ralph’s Coffee, New York NY
To Zak Stambor, senior analyst focusing on retail at eMarketer, these new physical spaces offer more than an experience; they also serve as marketing tools for customers. People may never walk in and order a flatbread at Capital One or buy an outdoor teak sofa at RH, but they re-align a brand they’ve known for years with a new look and feel.
Customer delights
Customers are also getting a more curated experience today when they walk into stores — especially with luxury brands. The 1950s coffee shop feel of Ralph Lauren’s cafés is woven into the heavy china plates and mugs emblazoned with the designer’s first name scripted across in a deep forest green. Tiffany, which is considered the destination for engagement wedding registries, has opened its global Blue Box Café, with afternoon tea service from New York to Shanghai. Customers may sit down for scones on a Saturday, and return six months later for a Mother’s Day gift — and that’s the point.
“They know people are not going to buy something that day,” says eMarketer’s Stambor. “It’s long-term brand building.”
Rapha Clubhouse café, New York, NY
But Stratten also points to changes happening with mass market retailers and believes it’s related to Gen Z. They’ve grown up with live shopping parties, where purchases happen online. Stratten believes they need a reason to come to a store, which brands are supplying, such as P&G’s skincare brand SK-II with pop-ups that let customers glean personalized recommendations, or Glossier, with its walls designed for photo ops where shoppers can shoot and upload TikToks.
“So when they come to a store, it doesn’t make sense for them to have the old-fashioned tables of neat products they walk around,” says Stratten. “They have grown up in a disruptive environment.”
Building Community
The after-effect of the pandemic and the isolation it required may also be helping to pull people back towards in-store experiences and away from online retail. Studies show that social media enhances users’ sense of loneliness — and there is no bigger user of social media than Gen Z.
Plus, this younger generation is living at a time when access and use of community spaces, so-called third places, is decreasing. Physical visits to public libraries and circulation data are down, and municipal budgets across the country, from California to New York are threatening access not only to libraries but maintenance of public spaces, such as parks.
Stratten says that by encouraging people to come to stores, these spaces may serve as third spaces where community can grow.
Several experts point to Rapha, the upscale cycling brand, (home of the $500 mesh cycling suit) as a prime example. Many of its stores in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. — the brand prefers the name “clubhouse” — have small coffee shops inside that echoes Italian cycling clubs of the 1970s often anchored to local cafés.
Fitness stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods in the US or GymShark in the UK also encourage people to hang out even if they’re not shopping. GymShark specifically offers full floors where people can lift weights or take fitness classes. The classes are typically free for members. And the cost to join? “Free,” says Stratten. “You just have to sign up.”
And the push to create new retail experiences is only growing. GymShark is opening its first New York store. Ralph’s Coffee launched its first Parisian spot in December, one of Capital One Cafés latest spaces debuted in March, with Nike expanding its Training Studios to Austin, Texas this summer.
“Brands are asking how do we continue to get people out of their houses and wanting to go somewhere,” says Twining. “It’s changing fast.”
