IS RETAIL DEAD?

I met Courtney on a rainy day in Venice Beach. Ducking for cover, I found myself in her beautifully curated boutique. We chatted about the weather and my plans in LA. I tried on a dress which she styled with a pair of tempting heels. I took both, along with Courtney’s cell number. She texted me a tailored list of shops, restaurants, and galleries to visit over the next few days.

We kept in touch. Weekly texts about work, travel, fashion. I needed a dress for a friend’s wedding. She offered to send me a few items, no need to pay up front. A few days later I tried the pieces on in my home, and fell in love with a floral print dress. The price was irrelevant. It belonged to me. It also marked the largest single item purchase I’d ever made in my life (my home aside). I trusted Courtney. Her service made an impression. She got me: style, lifestyle, all of it.

Six years working for Louis Vuitton taught me this: retail is service. In a world proclaiming the death of retail, I watched our business accelerate despite losses in store traffic and online visitors not able to make up the difference. Sure, luxury tends to be insulated. And we can’t ignore the power of global brands and exceptional products. These elements should have put us in line with competition, and on the decline. But LV has been an outlier. It views retail as what Courtney created for me: an inspiring experience which gave deeper meaning to the pieces I chose, combined with exceptional ease of service.

I jumped the Corporate Luxury ship six months ago, despite the sexy trajectory. I did it to launch Big Lives, a concept envisioning the future of retail.

Here is how it looks…

RETAIL ISN’T DEAD, IT’S DUSTY

As much as we fashion folks love the hyperbolic, no, retail isn’t dead.

We all agree, shopping isn’t what it used to be. A child of the 80s, I remember Saturday at the mall being a standard social activity. A way to connect — with family, friends, one’s confidence.

It’s also a given that consumers have changed. Less time, more options. Less impulsive consumption, more considered choices. More work, more stress, more screens. Retail evolved too, with new concepts proliferating, some more successful than others: Amazon, Bonobos, Bulletin…we can all rattle off the growing list.

This is all pretty boring. It frames 95% of articles about the future of retail. What’s revelatory is why, amidst all this change, the experience feels so foggy.

Thirty-thousand hours in retail and thousands of customers have left me without a doubt: people want to consume things that create meaning, and brands have meaning to transmit. What’s broken is the mode of transmission.

THE ANTE IS UPPED

Today consumers expect, above all, two things: meaningful experience and seamless transaction.

Meaningful experience is feeling a deeper connection with what, and how, we consume. This feeling has always driven shoppers. It’s what Courtney manifests for her clients.

At the height of mall culture, meaningful experience was about two things. First, socializing: engaging in a common activity at a physical destination with people you knew from school and your town. Second, consensus: consuming like products with like-minded people. Sure, I loved my Gap jeans because they were a great product. But also because I had fun finding them alongside my girlfriends and felt like, together, we perfectly represented this generational brand.

The rise of microbrands, digital commerce, and spending on experiences has upped the ante. Exceptional shopping experience requires:

• Immersive lifestyle environments that put products in context, and inspire us. RIP Colette.
• Brand stories we internalize and share. My current party trick is recommending Hayward House, a concept store founded by Dennis Hopper’s daughter Brooke Hayward. I relay the story so passionately it’s as if Dennis and Brooke personally shared it with me over cocktails.
• Collections that feel like they were curated with us in mind. A la Stitch Fix.
• Community, or participation in a human, cultural happening — with service that reflects it. We attribute Supreme’s stardom to exclusivity, but it’s more powerful: belonging to a highly visible, energized tribe.

Customers want to gain value from a brand that goes beyond the value of a product acquired. I don’t need another t-shirt; I need the souvenir of an experience. I need an article laced with stories to share when friends compliment my choice. My purchase is about something bigger than consumption, and is further enriched with memories through wear.

The second customer requirement, seamless transaction, has grown more acute in recent years. Amazon’s mission to create an online marketplace where everyone can discover anything their heart desires — the ultimate digital catalog — has changed the game. Consumers expect the ability to transact whenever, wherever, and however they choose.

Seamless transaction is about servicing choice and convenience. It demonstrates our time and resources are being valued by a brand.

Retailers are intimately familiar with these consumer expectations, and models built to satisfy them. So what, exactly, is wrong?

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

The retail industry is misled by one core assumption: that buying and shopping are the same. The reality is, you don’t need to buy to have shopped. Once we remove that requirement, the experience starts to get interesting.

Retailers mistakenly attempt to service both meaningful experience and seamless transaction in both brick-and-mortar and eCommerce environments. It’s just too much, and both settings end up leaving diluted impressions on customers.

Stores put enormous pressure on transaction volume to drive profitability. But declining foot traffic forces spending cuts to maintain margin. Store design, service, and merchandising interest go under the ax first. This erodes client experience and creates an environment shoppers don’t want to visit. Ecommerce tries to create an immersive shopping experience which can be gimmicky and cumbersome, when online shopping should be laser-focused on servicing choice and streamlining purchase.

Allowing each channel to do what it does best uncovers a new way forward. Brick-and-mortar can shine as it delivers meaningful experience, and gives products context through brand discovery (with little pressure to transact). The purpose of an online store, then, is as a virtual catalog. Customers, ripe with context from their in-store experience, can go back to the product and consider for purchase. Each channel can focus, and the two can feed each other.

THE NEW RULES OF RETAIL

Big Lives is a new retail concept which creates exceptional shopping experiences for customers. We curate emerging designers from around the globe, and source beautiful homes to host pop up events. Our online shop allows clients to go back and purchase whenever, wherever, and however they choose.

Big Lives’ approach recognizes the purpose and constraints of each channel. Our vision defines new rules of retail:

A store is a place to experience; online to transact.

• The best stores are ephemeral — creating moments that build richness and context for collections
• Removing pressure on retail managers to close sales improves customer experience
• Ecommerce serves as a virtual catalog where customers can revisit items and transact at their convenience

Luxury is not about price point — it’s about relationships.

• We service clients, not customers
• KPIs focus on customer value and engagement across channels, not daily transactions

Discounts do not create value, access does.

• Customers will pay to discover remarkable design talent
• Products embedded with context and stories are worth more
• Items that don’t go on sale are more valuable

THE NEW METRICS OF RETAIL

Traditional retailers struggle to evolve the model because they are chained to classic KPIs linked to sales per square foot and brick-and-mortar transaction volume. Hefty real estate leases and high operating costs are real, feeding the cycle. No one wants to run a shop at a loss.

Fixing retail requires new ways of defining and measuring success. Because we are moving clients through experience, our impact is tied to how effectively they become committed to our community, and how actively they operate as evangelists.

• “Experience impact” replaces sales per square foot. The value customers derive from in-store experience is not reflected in purchases at the pop up, but in how their perception of a product is enhanced by context (like meeting the designer). We are interested in the degree to which clients internalize a rich, three-dimensional understanding of brand and product.
• “Customer enthusiasm” replaces in-store conversion. How enthusiastically, how often, and for how long are customers talking about their experience? This measures how motivated clients are to share it with others over time. To this day, people still love to talk about Studio 54 and how they were there (if only once).
• “Story spread,” replaces average transaction value. Story spread measures our accuracy of transmission. How well did we arm customers with a clear understanding of what our brand is about (and what the designs they liked are about), such that they can share without diluting the message. If you were to play telephone, starting with someone who attended a Big Lives event, how well would the experience hold up once it gets to the second or third person in line? Or the tenth? Accurate transmission reflects a strong understanding of concept, and that shared understanding is the foundation for building community.

Not to say that these metrics are easy to measure, nor that sales are no longer important. But freeing ourselves from archaic KPIs is the only way to refocus on what matters, and force the model to follow suit.

OPTIMIZING FOR THE NEW STATE

Big Lives’ model is built on three lines of business optimized for the new metrics:

Big Lives Pop Ups: We curate emerging designers from around the globe, and source beautiful homes as backdrops to unique pop up events. Our pop up experience is an intersection of fashion, architecture, and community, bringing together undiscovered designers, real estate partners, local lifestyle vendors, and customers looking for remarkable design items.

Big Lives Online: Customers discover our full collection of emerging designers privately and shop on their own terms.

Big Lives Retail Service: a turnkey solution for eCommerce brands with high growth potential and limited brick-and-mortar presence. We customize and manage pop up events to drive customer acquisition, brand awareness, and community engagement for small designers.

REIMAGINING RETAIL

Big Lives is redefining the shopping experience as inspiring, energizing, and something people want to be a part of. Courtney created this for me one-on-one with her natural curiosity, empathy, and an iPhone. Louis Vuitton, backed by 160 years of experience and resource-building, scales it for millions of customers at the highest level of luxury.

Both Courtney and Louis Vuitton find the proof in the pudding. Revenue is a consequence of service. Margin is a consequence of experience. Customers are a consequence of community.

The future of retail, ironically, is not a huge departure from where we’ve been. It’s a simple reconfiguration of how we transmit brand meaning: through context, human connection, exceptional ease of service, and a genuine appreciation for the big lives of our clients.