VIEWPOINT The Marketplace of Ideas
Digital Age Enhances Consumers’ Need for Civic Life ERIC ROBERT KUHNE*
Abstract: Contrary to many predictions, retail real estate is ideally positioned to benefit from the digital age of shopping. As consumers embrace the Internet more for purchasing goods, shopping centers have an unmatched opportunity to remake themselves as marketplaces of ideas and experiences.
Many observers see a major clash between the virtual
and physical shopping worlds with the Internet winning out. Nothing can be further from the truth. What is often overlooked is that the physical world of the marketplace—unlike the Internet—captures the vitality of civic life, which can yield a potentially-unparalleled and needed experience for customers. The challenge for the physical world is to generate those experiences.
Technology Gain = Commercial Gain Never in history has an increase in technology resulted
in anything but a massive expansion of commerce. While the digital transformation of retail is changing perceptions of shopping, transactions, delivery and experiences, the advent of digital shopping will transform the development, design and operation of “marketplaces.” Shops are becoming showcases, stores becoming learning centers, malls becoming educational, leisure, entertainment and cultural destinations, and town centers becoming more crowded with enlightened guests because of the extraordinary flow of information around the world. Customers have never been more erudite or savvy,
the result of more disposable income, more discretionary time and greater awareness of global styles, fashions, tastes and trends. They are defining their uniqueness by customizing their wardrobes, homes and ideas with an ever-expanding awareness of the world’s finest cultures.
Within-Without-Withal The environment outside the store is as important as
what happens inside the store. The quality of the urban fabric is every bit as important as the quality of rack displays. Lighting, paving, landscaping, furnishing, security, festivity, spatial conveniences, accessibility, displays, signage, smells, diversity of offer, compatibility of amenities, branded addresses and branded villages— all of these support the idea that a place has a richness
* CivicArts / Eric R Kuhne & Associates INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF SHOPPING CENTERS 39 1 RETAIL PROPERTY INSIGHTS VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2013
of identity for itself and those who choose to go there. The city must enhance the identity of its people or it fails in its primary purpose: to empower its citizens. It is this external environment that retail shops and
shopping centers need to integrate. Only by blending these life experiences within, without and withal, as depicted in Figure 8-1, will it be possible to create the finest retailing experience. An important lesson to be learned also is that
architectural and urban retail design is only meaningful to the consumer when streets and storefronts are filled with diverse experiences, services, products and considerations that empower customers. Merchants sell lifestyles, not merely wardrobes, meals or gadgets.
Build Marketplaces, Not Shops The context of shops is as important as the content of
shops. While content is product- or service-driven, context is about the dimensions of the shopping experience. Retailers and shopping-center owners shape the execution of content and context to create a branded experience for the consumer. However, that branded experience must be uniquely integrated within the environment in which the store or center sits. Lifestyles, shops, merchandise and civic places align
with and reinforce each other and collectively create a branded destination. That branded destination then becomes a marketplace—and not just a set of shops. Moreover, those uniquely integrated characteristics of a marketplace are what will lengthen the duration of a customer stay, increase frequency of visits and provide a social setting for the visitor that will reach beyond simple commerce. Without a doubt, people want content and context for defining their lives, and marketplaces can help do that. To build those marketplaces, it is also useful to embrace psychographic profiles to look into the heart and
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