Lessons from Apple: Top tips to excel in experiential retail

By Dave Bruno, Director of Retail Industry Insights, Aptos

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the first Apple retail store.

Since 2001, Apple has consistently been referred to as one of the most valuable companies in the world, breaking records left, right and centre.

And in August 2020, it broke new records by becoming the first US company to be valued at $2 trillion on the stock market. So, what is the secret to the company’s success and what can other retailers do to get a slice of the action?

For the newest Apple Watch features, like unlocking your iPhone with Face ID when you’re wearing a face mask, make sure to update to watchOS 7.4.

Here’s how: https://t.co/KnE0WRmF0z pic.twitter.com/NT4HSidMp9
— Apple Support (@AppleSupport) May 3, 2021

1. Establish a clear value proposition

Apple is one of the earliest pioneers of experiential retail.

Over the past two decades, each of the Apple stores – whether it be the flagship store on Regent Street in London or a smaller storefront in a suburban shopping centre - has held to the company's long standing value proposition of delivering a superior user experience.

The company took what it knew worked for its customers in the digital world and converted those concepts to the bricks and mortar setting with value-adds that only a physical presence can provide.

Its genius bar, classes, lectures, and other in-store events, combined with its sales consultants' ability to roam the store freely to assist customers (versus being constrained to a traditional tillpoint), together set a new standard for what it means to deliver an unparalleled in-store shopping experience.

2. Embrace e-commerce

Apple's influence on the evolution of the store in driving sticky relationships with customers cannot be overstated.

If you cast your mind back to when e-commerce first began to take off during the dotcom boom, it quickly became clear to many retailers, including Apple, that the role of the store was going to change.

For Apple it was clear that its first storefronts, established in May of 2001 - and its stores to follow - would need to be much more than transaction centres.

Apple stores, with an eventual international presence that furthered the brand as a global leader in tech, soon became a real world example of how to design experiences that give customers a reason to visit the store, buy more, and more frequently.

But these stores did much more than draw traffic. The variety of services and experiences Apple offers in-store has become a universal proof point that a physical location could once again become the centrepiece of the customer journey.

Apple has shown the world that there is more to succeeding in retail than expanding one's physical presence to online.

3. Reimagine the in-store experience (and again, and again)

Just as Apple reinvented how we work, create, consume music and interact via mobile devices, the tech giant - and now retailer - also reinvented what role we expect bricks and mortar stores to play in the shopping journey.

Before Apple opened its first storefronts, we'd walk into a store to see and try on merchandise before making a purchase, or we'd come with a return.

Then came the Apple store, where the transaction seems like the least important thing on the menu. You can talk to a product 'genius,' play around with the latest technologies on display, or learn how to film a movie from a handheld device.

This is a bonus to the low pressure option of being assisted by a knowledgeable sales consultant who can answer quick customer questions, check store inventory, schedule a genius bar appointment, or help make a custom order - all without leaving our side.

Suddenly, the store was an essential part of the total brand experience, not just a hub for transactions.

Other retailers have taken note and are finding ways to further the in-store experience with their own versions of the 'genius bar' and offer value adds that are unique to their individual store environments and products they sell.

Looking ahead it will be interesting to see where we land in another 20 years (2041, if you can believe it).

But if there’s one thing for retailers to take away, it’s that it won’t be long before the social Darwinism of retail weeds out all of the remaining bricks and mortar experiences that don't meet this golden standard set by Apple, if they haven't already.

Featured