Chapter Fourteen. The great big theater of shop

The Stew Leonard’s case study featured some great big dripping chunks of retail theater—an idea that’s so critical to creating great customer experiences. Theater. Hmm, we love a bit of Shakespeare and all that ... I’m not talking about that sort of theater. Well, I am actually, but not in the same way: retail theater is about animating the store, making it live and breathe. Telling stories with color, sound, movement, and even smells and tastes.

“What for?” is the reasonable question. The answer is: Bringing the store to life brings your customers to life too. Your biggest challenge is to get customers to pick up stuff and interact with it and with staff—get that happening and you sell more things. ...

Get Know Your Shoppers (Collection) now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.