Contract - July/August 2010 - (Page 99)

The bold color palette in Best Buy’s New York store, designed by Charles Sparks + Co., is implemented in the entry to enhance the company’s service message (opposite top). Materials moved away from the traditional, and hard surface wide aisles ease navigation (opposite bottom). The new store features a logical flow of traffic (above right), and presentations are broken down into smaller, more understandable concepts (above left). (Photos by Charlie Mayer.) Smaller is Bigger The big box we know today need not and will not remain a warehouse of product stacked high and deep. More consumers are doing their homework before they enter the store and as more alternative pathways to purchase emerge—such as QR coding, online shopping, etc.—the result ultimately will be less in-store inventory, smaller more efficient footprints, and a comfortable environment where consumers interact with and educate themselves about the merchandise. In consumer electronics, what is envisioned is more a presentation of trained staff showing customers how to unlock the full potential of their devices by demonstrating advanced services integrated with hardware products and entertainment content. The Changing Box Our collaborative work with Best Buy began in 2007 involving the development of an “urban experience” store in New York, followed by the Hancock Center in Chicago in 2008. These sites were generally “off the grid” of any of their prior prototype formats. While Best Buy had experimented with urban sites in New York before, the results had been a diminished experiential value, difficulty with navigation, and stores that were more difficult to operate than their suburban counterparts. With these great locations come oddly configured multi-level footprints unfamiliar to Best Buy prototype formats. Along with organizing the stores for easeof-navigation, we were asked to help create strategic locations that could present technology as solutions to real life needs and wants. A Familiar Platform—but with Surprises The introduction of “solutions” selling rooms and focal attractors were developed to stage collections of product that work together to help customers with their lives, work, and play. Hard surface “esplanades” were designed as wide central aisles leading to focal attractors for ease-ofnavigation and to activate all parts of the unusual space configurations, while materials and finishes moved away from the traditional. The Best Buy palette of bold color blocking was used as a way to enhance the service message and to reinforce the individual color identities associated with each important service offering. Boldly scaled lifestyle graphics were developed as emotive visual references to people “on-thego” using mobile devices. Resetting the Experience Regardless of category of merchandise, big box retailers must approach the plan of their stores by mapping the customer experience. We have found that by rethinking logical principles of orienting, engaging, informing, and ultimately persuading customers when developing layout, major barriers to the purchasing decision can be discovered and removed. Once discovered, these barriers often have been a result of habit and hindsight or an operating assumption, rather than a close examination of customer needs, how they move through larger formats, and shopping patterns in general. www.contractdesign.com contract july/august 2010 99 http://www.contractdesign.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Contract - July/August 2010

Contract - July/August 2010
Contents
Editor’s Note
Industry
Focus: Please Repeat That
Exhibition
Practice: The Manufacturers' Rep
Hot Shops
Taking Luxe to a New Level
Stock Art
Playful Persuit
True to Form
Sources
Trends: A Strategy Made Visible
Process: Revving Up With Revit
Ad Index
Perspectives

Contract - July/August 2010