Experiential retail or experiential commerce is a type of retail marketing whereby customers coming into a physical retail space are offered experiences beyond the traditional ones (such as in a clothing store: browsing merchandise, advice from live human salespeople, dressing rooms and cashiers). Amenities provided may include art (often interactive art), live music, virtual reality, cafés and lounges, and large video display walls.

Theory

As of 2019, the target market for experiential commerce is chiefly

Millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000 ...

, who are (supposedly, according to "studies") as a group overall less materialistic than previous generations and prone to spend relatively more of their disposable income on services - for example wellness and gyms. This supposed spending pattern is disputed by the Federal Reserve. Even where there is a product consumed, such as at

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

and its competitors, customers are paying more "because of the experience", not (only) because it might be a better product than at a diner, for example.

Apple Stores The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell various Apple products, including Mac personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital media ...

purport to provide not only a superior product but an "experience" and a "gathering space" or "Town Square" as well. E-commerce retailers such as Casper, Harry's and b8ta have a limited number of experiential physical stores or spaces where their products can not only be viewed but experienced. Many of these brand-promoting experiential spaces are, at the same time, addressing the Millennials' reported tendency to be more brand-loyal than previous generations who shopped more for relatively more interchangeable products and services on price.

Examples

Examples of experiential retail and experiential commerce are: *

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

's "Samsung 837"

pop-up store Pop-up retail, also known as pop-up store (pop-up shop in the UK, Australia and Ireland) or flash retailing, is a trend of opening short-term sales spaces that last for days to weeks before closing down, often to catch onto a fad or scheduled e ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, a "cavern"-style venue of with interactive art, virtual reality, lounge areas, a recording studio and a 3-story 96-screen display wall. * House of

Vans Vans is an American manufacturer of skateboarding shoes and related apparel, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the comp ...

in London, U.K., a space with a concrete mini-ramp, and street course for skateboards, cinema, café, live music venue and art gallery *

Escape rooms An escape room, also known as an escape game, puzzle room, exit game, or riddle room is a game in which a team of players discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish a specific goal in a limit ...

Farfetch Farfetch is a British-Portuguese online luxury fashion retail platform that sells products from over 700 boutiques and brands from around the world. The company was founded in 2007 by the Portuguese entrepreneur José Neves with its headquarters ...

pop-up stores in the U.K. for online retailers of high-end apparel *

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...

events where customers could spend the night in their warehouse in

Essex, England Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

and were given massages, could select their bed linens and received sleep and mattress consultations from a sleep expert. *

Selfie museum A "selfie museum" or "Instagram museum" is a type of art gallery or installation designed to provide a setting for visitors to pose in photographs to be posted on social media sites such as Instagram. Typical features of exhibits in a selfie museu ...

s, where visitors are encouraged to interact with exhibits and pose for photographs. *

Space Ninety 8 Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

, an offshoot of

Urban Outfitters Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN) is a multinational lifestyle retail corporation headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Operating in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, select Western European countries, Poland the United Arab Emirates, Kuw ...

that sells merchandise, has yoga classes, album signings, art classes, and other social space. * TOMS, a shoe company that placed virtual reality headsets into 100 stores "virtually transporting" them to Peru to see the impact of a social campaign. Experiential commerce encompasses experiential retail but also may be purely virtual experiences or not connected to any semi-permanently or otherwise established space owned by a brand, for example: *

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( ), based in San Francisco, California, operates an online marketplace focused on short-term homestays and experiences. The company acts as a broker and charges a commission from each booking. The company was founded in 2008 b ...

"Experiences" platform offering lodging combined with experiences in cities *

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks of Austria, Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With 38% market share, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2019. Since its launch in 1987, more than 100 billion cans of Red Bull have been sold worldwid ...

that spent $65 million to, with the help of agency

MediaMonks Media.Monks is a digital-first marketing and advertising services company that connects content, data and digital media and technology services and produces websites, games, films, social media content, digital advertising campaigns, data and mea ...

, drop the Austrian daredevil

Felix Baumgartner Felix Baumgartner (; born 20 April 1969) is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is widely known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon from the stratosphere on 14 October 2012 and landing in New Mexico, United States, as par ...

out of a space balloon, and live streamed it

References

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