In our day and age experience in stores counts as much as the sale. People can easily now buy products online, so physical stores need to go that extra mile in order to attract customers. This marketing strategy is called experiential retail.

‍Experiential retail stores use advanced technology, knowledgeable staff and can go as far as organising events to create memorable experiences in store.

‍Every interaction a consumer has with your brand begins with the first point of contact and continues all the way through the customer’s journey. Each step of the customer’s journey can be crucial to the overall experience. Paying attention to each detail will only bring back the desirable results; increase in sales and customer loyalty.

‍It has been proven time and time again that loyal customers spend more, are easier to re-acquire, and are very likely to share positive feedback with their close contacts and social media. By increasing customer engagement not only you will get the benefits we discussed above but also will differentiate your brand from its competitors.

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Experiential Applications

‍Photo-Gif Booth

‍The new way to do retail is more experiential, and that definitely includes interactive activations like photo or gif booths.

‍What if we told you that by installing one of those interactive activations you could get customers to spend more time in your store, create social proof for your brand and willingly share it on social media? Not only do the in-store photo booths provide a fun and memorable experience but it also gives people a reason to tell their friends about your brand and come back next time when they are shopping nearby!

‍Our team of experts and creatives can create customisable photo/gif booths to fit your needs. From our popular selfie playground and capture pod to our interactive snap mask and our fun social star!

For our projects with Sports Direct our team at Xi built multiple selfie mirrors across the estate for customers to interact with. Each visitor to the store has the chance to interact and take their own selfie, choosing from a range of filters. The selfie taker can then download their photo to share across their own social media account.

Gamification

‍People are competitive by nature. Incorporating gamification into your store you can bring the element of fun by targeting people’s competitive spirit. By including this kind of application you will have smiley, laughing customers that move around your store, showing your brand is more than just selling products but actually bringing people together and having a great time! According to the Harvard Business Review, a 5% rise of customer attention by 5% generates a 25%-95% increase in profit. Gamification appears to be a go-to tactic to enhance sales, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.

For that we have some great examples that we have used in the past with great success. Such as the Play Pad. By installing a play pad in your store you can encourage your guests to unleash their inner competitive side! Whether you’ve got a game in mind, or you want to create a new one our Play Pad is customisable to meet your needs.

For the Room on the Broom Animated Movie Experience studio we created a studio experience where guests customise their journey with RFID bands and queue line interactions before creating their movie. This is a fun interactive application that can target any audience from the younger ones to the older ones.

Gallery/ Social Wall

‍What a better way is there to engage people than letting them see their content on the big screen? Our social walls are fully brand-able and are available in a selection of design templates, all of which are customised to suit your displays. A great tip to make your social wall more interactive is by creating a hashtag.

By encouraging your audience to post using that unique hashtag the users can  share their ideas, opinions, feedback, questions and overall experiences on social media. Those posts will then be displayed on the social wall showing people how valuable their opinion is for your company.

‍Conclusion

‍As the millennial and Gen-Z customer number is increasing, so is the demand for more immersive experiences in stores. The post pandemic retail scenery has changed dramatically in order to bring customers back in retail stores. And for that we have the solution.

‍Contact us today if you would like to discuss your unique ideas and our creative team of experts will create a customisable interactive solution that will wow your customers and create unique experiences in your store.