Geometry Global Travels Through Time to the Store of the Future

Last week 350 leading FMCG manufacturers, retailers and influencers met at the annual Omnishopper International with a single focus: to spark new ideas across shopper insights, shopper marketing, in-store, online and at home. In short, to shape the future of retail.

Heads of innovation, e-commerce and shopper marketing from major businesses including Unilever, Danone, Coca-Cola, Harrods, Mondelez Europe, Samsung, Shell Retail and Tesco were amongst the delegates.

As part of its partnership with Omnishopper International Geometry Global EMEA served up a personal tour of the future of retail - inviting brand owners to visit a handful of stores innovating for the modern shopper and turning brand experience on its head.

Geometry’s view is simple: winning brands and retailers recognise that shoppers research online and buy in-store, and, vice versa. Great retailers and brands worry less about where they convert the shopper as long as they convert.  For some brands, the store is a showrooming experience to nudge shopper research, for others it’s a new way increase visibility, reach and convert new customers.                                                                           

In reality, commented Geometry Global EMEA CEO Pietro Leone, people live seamlessly between digital and physical, and, successful brands and retailers are doing the same. He continued, “The showroom phenomena is coming out of the need for retailers to provide an experience that cannot be replicated online – so the benefit of price and convenience that plays in favour of e-tailers is balanced by new ways of looking at in-store experience”

On that basis, Geometry EMEA’s retail tour visited the following innovators:

In partnership with Land Rover/Jaguar/Hyundai, digital retail specialist Rockar is re-engineering car buying from scratch. It has bid farewell to the traditional car room – dispensed with KPIs and introduced assistants, often drawn from outside the car industry, compensated by salary, not commission. It has launched showrooms in shopping centres, designed stores with an Apple-esque streamlined look and feel with strong appeal to a younger generation of shoppers. Potential purchasers are invited to an hour’s test drive, unaccompanied while shoppers design their own personalised car instore with online workstations.

Rockar challenges every aspect of traditional car-buying by putting the shopper firmly in control.

In August, IKEA opened its first UK shopping centre store, at Westfield Stratford City – just one of five UK concept stores. Acting primarily as a planning studio for complex purchases [kitchens, living and bedrooms] it features room sets with ideas for the home. Online purchase is inspired and supported by making IKEA more accessible to more people through the mall location, as it creates a guided shop emphasizing discoverability over shoppability. It triumphs by truly tapping into the local shopper by taking into account the average size of accommodation in the area, and local tastes and cultures.

IKEA continues to blaze the trail for the modern shopper who effortlessly blends digital with physical.

Boutique Kite  is redefining the purchase of optical wear in tune with the omni-channel shopper. Its touch-screen mirror allows customers to take a ‘spec selfie’ wearing their favourite KITE frames and share instantly with social media networks gathering opinions from friends and family. In the same way, it brilliantly helps prescription glasses wearers try on non-prescription glasses, take photos, put their old glasses back on so to see what they look like, and compare several frames in one time. With glasses and sunglasses an elegant balance of science and art, hand-made in Italy – there is full transparency with a flat fee of £150.00.

A great example of simplifying the path to purchase where price transparency builds trust from the beginning –with no surprises at the till.