Weekly Wrap, Kevin Gill, co-founder JudgeGill
Kevin Gill, co-founder of Manchester design agency JudgeGill, discusses the role of experience design in an online retail environment.
When cap-ex budgets are frozen, experience design can continue to be funded by marketing budgets, delivering new impetus for a store without closing for refurbishment or simply papering over the cracks with ineffective graphics of happy, smiley faces.
Experience design provides a number of opportunities: bringing life to the store at a reasonable expenditure, driving traffic to SNS, giving customers a reason to talk about your store, and inspiring a new visit or longer stay.
Good experience design should be something the consumer wants, expects and values. It must be engaging and should look to generate emotional responses in its users, aim to get people clapping, cheering or feeling scared; this shows they are truly engaged. Build excitement and communication.
Ultimately, a retail environment is a fantastic opportunity to deepen the relationship with your consumer and influence their choices. A well-designed store environment can play a unique role in providing customers with an ever deeper and more generous brand experience – one that’s both rewarding and stimulating. It’s about using the store environment to take customer service to the next level – rewarding customers for their loyalty and giving them a reason to stay longer and come back again another day.
We only need to take a look at product brands such as adidas, Apple, Camper, Diesel and the role a retail network can play in a brand’s success becomes clear.