Whether due to the threats of impending inflation or the ease of online ordering, it is becoming more and more difficult for retail tenants to lure a large amount of foot traffic customers into to their stores. Consequently, retailers have been forced to come up with creative interactive methods to draw in the typical window shopper customer.
Many of these new “bells and whistles” elements involve physically engaging the customer to test out products, or even to literally make the shopper comfortable in a lounge-like in-store setting. The latest retailers that have seemingly mastered the art of beckoning shoppers into their stores with their razzle dazzle ways include TravisMathew Apparel, Dick’s House of Sport and Canada Goose.
TravisMathew Apparel plans to increase the sizes of its future stores, from an average of 2,250 s.f. to an average of 6,000 s.f., partially in order to provide more fun in-store opportunities for its customers, the majority of whom are male. For example, its flagship store, at the Fashion Island mall in Newport Beach, Calif., increased its size last summer from 2,000 s.f. to 5,545 s.f, and now boasts such fun diversionary features as freestanding arcade games, a ping pong table, a shuffleboard area, televisions displaying live sports games, a PuttView golf aid simulator for customers to improve golf swinging abilities, multiple lounge areas and even a physical golf cart that a customer can sit in, which slides in and out of the store through an exterior window. Last year TravisMathew relocated some of its other stores in order to factor in the need for larger spaces to add these new play activities, such as its units in The Gardens mall in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and in the Park Meadows mall in Lone Tree, Colo.
Dick’s House of Sport, the fairly new concept from Dick’s Sporting Goods that had its debut two years ago, also incorporates a larger space to accommodate more physically engaging features. This includes an outdoor turf field area, complete with a running track, for customers to test out merchandise. The space can also be utilized for group class events, such as outdoor yoga. During winter months, the turf field can be transformed into an ice skating rink. Additional interactive offerings at these stores include a rock climbing wall, a batting cage, golf hitting bays with simulators and a putting green. The House of Sport stores are much larger, between 100,000- and 140,000 s.f., in order to contain all of the unique interactive displays; the size of a traditional Dick’s Sporting Goods store is between 35,000- and 80,000 s.f. in size. The brand expects to open up to 100 of these types of stores in five years, whether through conversions of Dick’s Sporting Goods stores, or through newly leased spaces.
Canada Goose, the Canadian-based winter themed luxury apparel retailer, has given its customers an exciting way to test out the warmth of its products through its in-store “Cold Room” compartment rooms that can produce a temperature of minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as create actual snow flurries. Although the retailer can fit these features into its usual store size space, which average 4,000 s.f., Canada Goose has also opened units as large as 10,000 s.f., such as its U.S. flagship store in Chicago. The brand especially seeks out high end tourist destinations for its stores, banking on these experiential fun cold rooms to entice new customers.
