Welcome to The Living High Street (Pt. 1)

These Experience Experiments could turn retail around

Reducing friction in an unappealing experience won’t make it appealing.

Retail innovation strategies have included futuristic tech, big name partnerships and ambitious training schemes. But these fanciful projects fail to grapple with the problems that customers have today with the high street.

There simply isn’t anything special about most retail experiences. And in an increasingly service-based economy — where product margins are squeezed by global competitors and e-commerce — retailers need to reimagine their store spaces around experiences that drive demand for products.

So we did the imagining bit for them.

Welcome to ‘The Living High Street’.

• An edible showcase of the best local / British produce
• The Hall hosts a dozen stalls— some local producers, plus M&S delicacies
• Buy food to go, or sit and nibble there and then (increasing dwell time)

• Where anyone can learn a new skill and enrich their lives with learning
• Classes tailored to different groups: a midday mumpreneurs marketing primer, an evening DIY school for first home buyers
• Drives demand for core products (educational texts, stationery, tech)

• A library where you can rent any tech you need, for as long as you need it
• Rent a new phone, a drone cam for holiday or a 4k projector for the match
• Helps device manufacturers extend product lifecycles and reduce waste

• A casual space in Zizzi for freelancers, groups and teams to work and host
• Theatre spaces, private rooms and single desks, bookable by the hour
• Fills fallow time in a restaurant, which is empty outside mealtimes

All of the above are focused on one thing: driving footfall. None of the above uses anything but off-the-shelf tech. And they’re all inspired by the core brand’s heritage.

Even so, customers might not like them.

That’s why they’re ‘experience experiments’. We’d put these ideas in front of customers to get feedback, uncovering what they really need on the high street.

Taking those insights, we develop them into real propositions and bring them to life on a small scale (say, one store on one day). We’d get some data, refine the propositions, build a bigger investment case and run a bigger experiment in a few more stores.

In just a few weeks, a retailer could have a portfolio of propositions, based on customer insights, with a scale roadmap.

On the other hand, you could spend years and a few million pounds implementing smart mirrors, personalised fast lanes or data training. But reducing friction in an unappealing experience won’t make it appealing.

Given the tight margins and fast pace of retail, innovation has to be focused on now problems, now solutions. Experience experiments can tackle those problems, drive short term momentum.

And they may eventually provide the retail model of the future.