Putting The Show Back In Showroom: Panasonic Unveils First Lumix Lounge
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
As the bricks vs. clicks wars rage on, some brands and retailers are putting the ‘show’ back into showroom. With a market flooded with endless product information, user reviews and photographs, it’s difficult to get new products noticed. Designing customer experiences that go above and beyond offering increased convenience and frictionless shopping could be the magic ingredient some retailers and brands need. This month, Best Buy announced both Sony and Samsung would be opening ‘store-within-store’ concepts designed to wow shoppers with new products available. This week, Panasonic launched the Lumix Lounge within the larger New Jersey photography supercenter Unique Photo.
Lumix Lounge puts the focus on Panasonic products, which are available for sale within the lounge. The lounge takes it a step further, however, and also doubles as a coffee bar with free Wi-Fi, creating a place for shoppers to pause and mingle. The 750 square foot space also features massage chairs, made by Panasonic. This real world version of Lumix Lounge is based on its online counterpart; the Lumix Luminary Lounge hangout on Google+. Unique Photo president Matthew Sweetwood, reflects, “it’s a lifestyle statement, a place where photographers can hang out and talk photography. We like to consider ourselves a center of photography, so why not have a photography lounge in our store? To me, it makes perfect sense.”
Retailers also working to bring more show to their showrooms include Restoration Hardware and Canadian menswear retailer Harry Rosen. Restoration Hardware last spring opened a 4 floor, 40,000 square foot design gallery in Boston’s Back Bay. The impressive gallery, housed in the former museum of natural history, features a boutique florist, a wine bar, an open-for-play billiard room and a sculpture garden. Harry Rosen is defining its showrooms as destinations with initiatives such as ‘Straight Shave Saturdays’ where men can get an old-fashioned shave from a barber and ‘Harry’s Underground Music Lounge’ that periodically transforms the flagship store into an actual concert venue. “Like the fashion industry ... the Harry Rosen brand is constantly evolving to upgrade and expand the in-store experience and fuse their bricks-and-mortar and online businesses, all while maintaining the legendary service culture their customers have come to rely on,” comments Diane J. Brisebois, president of the Retail Council of Canada. Clearly, these innovative brands believe that customer-centric retailing is key to increasing both engagement and sales.