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New adventures in retail design
Nov 12, 2007
Three retail-oriented pieces today caught my eye:
1. The NYT reports that Borders will add TVs to its bookstores:
A new strategy at Borders will reinforce the message that its stores are not just about books: the company has been installing 37-inch flat-screen televisions to show original programming, advertisements, news and weather.
...Emphasis on advertisements. Much like the ubiquitous TVs in airports today, blaring commercials between CNN spots, I doubt that TVs in bookstores are primarily meant to enhance the customers' experience of the place.
2. Separately, over at Brookstone, they're trying to "recreate the in-store experience" on the website, something I haven't heard so much about since the last bubble:
As in Second Life, Brookstone’s 3-D store lets users move freely through an animated world. ... According to Greg Sweeney, a Brookstone vice president, the new service is purely experimental at this stage. He acknowledged some hurdles could give shoppers pause, like the fact that they must download an application before trying the service.
The VP speaks the truth. Customers will indeed "pause" before downloading an application, going through an installation wizard, learning the navigation interface, and flying around trying to read the labels on small 3-D boxes (see screenshot here). In fact many customers will pause permanently - and may never return.
3. Finally, David Byrne writes a fun piece describing (accurately enough) that a visit to IKEA is like a video game:
Who lives here? What do they do? Why is that book on the table? Is that significant? Could it be some kind of clue to the occupant’s identity? Why does everything have weird names?
...One soon realizes that one of the goals of this “game” is to decide which cabinets, in which wood or wood-like material, would, could or should be combined with which counter materials, and then to match them to a particular style sofa and upholstery, and finally, to select the color and texture of floor material that would coordinate best with all the above.
Welcome to the bright shining future of retail: you'll sit at home to fly through a virtual store, which (to recreate the in-store experience) must contain a virtual TV, blaring ads and perhaps a few clips of people sitting at home playing the video game version of a shopping trip. So what if no one actually sells any product; it sure gets the headlines!
See also: IKEA walkthrough by Matthew Baldwin (thanks, Henry)
The in-scene advertisement has been here since the first "virtual reality" boom (and bust) in the early 90s. Sponsors often paid for the construction of virtual worlds that had only a tenuous connection with the sponsors' businesses. The videogame industry has followed suit with placements of ads (billboards and in-scene video screens) and products. Marketers can't say no to even the most distracting or trivial revenue stream.
You're right about the unappealing prospect of navigating a so-called 3D environment -- what visual scientists call 2-1/2D, or simulated 3D -- on a screen that subtends less than 120 degrees of a person's field of view, one that supports the perceptual effects sought after. If you're two feet from the screen, that means you need a screen that's at least 30" wide. If you're eight feet away, you need a screen that's at least 20' wide. Pretty expensive fare for the average household -- and enormously energy inefficient. You can't go shopping green in 2-1/2D, that's for sure.
Regarding TVs in Borders, perhaps one interesting side effect would be to reduce the amount of time people spend reading books instead of buying them. Maybe it's a stretch, but perhaps this kind of environment would drive more people to return to libraries, where you're supposed to be quiet.