Article

Red Chariot retail immersion center to open in June

Services are aimed at reinventing the shopping experience post-recession.

May 4, 2011 by Kim Williams — Reporter, NetWorld Alliance

Red Chariot, a retail immersion center located in Minneapolis, Minn., with services centered around helping retailers create a compelling experience for shoppers, will officially open at full capacity, with a 5,000 square-foot "store" in June.

The center is designed exclusively for retail executives, in-store brand marketers, store planners, visual merchandisers, environment designers, creatives and in-store operations teams.

"Clients come to us with their initiative, such as 'we want to improve our shoe department,' or 'we want to make it easier for people to choose mobile phones and calling plans,' etc., and we design the workshops around that and go as deep as the client wants," said Mark Murray, managing director, Red Chariot.

Red Chariot provides hands-on discovery sessions, followed by collaborative workshops and roundtable discussions, all facilitated by industry experts. Whether the project is based on a new vision for a shop-in-shop fixture, or an entire store concept, the team organizes strategy documents, conceptual drawings, detailed lists of requirements, material choices, line-item budgets and timelines.

"Clients send us their multidisciplinary teams and the topic, and we provide the forum. It's a workshop setting for strategy, planning and design, with an immersive retail store for stimulus," Murray said.

The collaborative format is designed for working in tight time frames and brings together people from brand and product marketing groups who rarely get involved in the retail presentation to get their agenda on the table. The method works to create a nexus between retail opportunities and realities.

Consumer research, shopper insights, design decisions made about products, advertising, key messaging and value propositioning, among other elements, are all discussed and integrated into the designing process.
 
Adapting to a new retail landscape

Red Chariot's parent company, PD, formerly known as Process Displays, wanted to know and understand the retail industry's reaction to the economy and how the recession changed the shopper. A year-long quest to gather information to help retailers cope with the changing environment ensued, and out of it, Red Chariot was born.

"A lot of the big retailers were dealing with the operational aspects of running a store; that's how they survived during the worst of times," Murray said. "They relied on operations to determine how much things should cost, how much money should be spent, what kind of inventory to get, and they've done a good job keeping afloat, but that has all changed, and now they need to reverse the spiral."

Murray interviewed some of the top names in retail, retail architecture and product manufacturing, as well as performed secondary research into consumers' reactions to the recession and how it changed their shopping behavior.

"What we found on the retail side was what we called a need for a practical visionary. Everyone knows what the situation is and the hurdles involved but were resolved to let the realities dilute their presentation," Murray said.

After the interview process was complete, he came up with a methodology on retail design and adapted it for working in charette, a term that refers to an intense period of design activity.

"We believe people are making smarter buying decisions. So, instead of owning 20 ugly purses, shoppers are just purchasing five really good ones. My father used to say, 'We don't have enough money to buy cheap clothes,' and I think the consumer is echoing that now," Murray said. 

Murray doesn't think the warehouse formula works anymore and consumers want to feel good about their purchases and feel special and appreciated for patronizing a particular store.

With consumer confidence making a comeback, Murray said the shopping experience needs to make a comeback as well, which is why a store was built in the facility to allow retailers a chance to experience what their customers might experience.

Parent company has visual merchandising roots

The location in Minneapolis is intentional to the extent that PD, a manufacturer of retail displays, has a large visual merchandising plant nearby that offers clients the ability to move quickly from sketches and key ideas to prototypes.

"We hand off the ideas to PD and go to dinner to enable the team to work overnight to manufacture the prototypes to present to the clients in the morning. It's rapid prototyping gone wild," Murray said.

The center's 5,000 square-foot retail "store" will also act as a prototype, helping clients envision the retail experience by actually being able to "shop" the store. Additionally, material choices are incorporated for inspiration and suggestion.

The store even has a concrete sidewalk and street-level display windows, complete with audio to add to the total effect. The street sounds and other audio effects are provided by Audiobrain, the sound consultancy behind the Emmy Award-winning music supervision for NBC’s Beijing Olympics broadcast.

"We want to help retailers get that balance where the brick-and-mortar store is offering value, but it's also a meaningful brand and product," Murray said.