It’s honest to say that – within the UK no less than – Christmas and John Lewis go hand-in-hand. Yearly, the discharge of the annual John Lewis Christmas advert is a large occasion, with many individuals contemplating it to mark the official begin of Christmas; the advert is the topic of every kind of chatter on social media, and publications obsessively break down each element. Twitter UK even riffed on the normal John Lewis advert one yr for its personal Christmas advert, starring Mr. John Lewis, holder of the @JohnLewis Twitter account.
As Claire Pointon, Buyer Director at John Lewis, acknowledged in her presentation throughout Day 2 of ShopTalk Europe, the hype surrounding John Lewis at Christmas is a “enormous strain”. For John Lewis, she mentioned, “Christmas begins in February” – with near a yr’s value of planning moving into to every yr’s iteration.
For Christmas 2021, John Lewis discovered itself confronted with a further problem: the right way to encourage clients to return to purchasing in-store after greater than 18 months of a world pandemic and intermittent lockdowns. Pointon admitted that the retailer misplaced “a portion of its clients” through the pandemic who beloved purchasing in-store.
Although John Lewis has invested an amazing deal in its on-line presence – onboarding a brand new ecommerce platform in November 2020, opening new distribution centres in 2021, and pledging to make investments no less than £150 million in its digital channels – its shops are nonetheless a key a part of its retail proposition.
With that mentioned, Pointon mentioned that John Lewis needed to “ensure that we [didn’t] lose the digital connection” with clients whereas encouraging them again into shops.
Right here’s how the retailer got down to create memorable Christmas purchasing experiences that clients might interact with each on-line and offline, and what it discovered from the method.
What are the keys to good experiential retail?
The problem for John Lewis final Christmas was, as Pointon put it, “How do you create an expertise that folks wish to come and go to?” Whereas this might need been a simple query to reply previous to the pandemic, clients in 2021 have been nonetheless cautious of returning to bodily shops, or maybe may not have seen the necessity now that they’d reoriented a few of their habits round on-line and ecommerce. Those that did come into shops additionally had expectations of a extra related expertise: “The fact is, clients expertise your model and so they simply anticipate it to be related,” Pointon mentioned.
John Lewis achieved this connection by way of QR codes, which Pointon famous have been “very low-cost to place in.” Because of the QR codes on product shows, which might take consumers to the identical merchandise on the John Lewis web site, clients got a selection as as to if to buy then and there in-store and take the merchandise house, or purchase them on-line for later assortment or supply.
John Lewis additionally took digital camera footage of the Christmas Emporium (a time period used to confer with a choose variety of festive purchasing shows that integrated workshops and occasions) at its flagship retailer in Oxford Avenue and recreated it on-line for consumers to tour nearly. This was one thing that the retailer first trialled in 2020 whereas shops have been closed because of the lockdown, as a means of bringing the magic of that carefully-curated Christmas show to life on-line and letting internet buyers uncover its Christmas vary as they might in a retailer.
Bringing the digital tour again once more in 2021 meant that consumers might nonetheless take pleasure in that experiential factor of the Christmas store from the consolation of their houses – but it surely additionally may encourage them to exit and expertise the vary in particular person now that outlets have been reopened.
Pointon outlined three “pillars” that she believes are key to good experiential retail:
- “Expertise has to encourage individuals to take motion”. Looking the bodily Christmas show at John Lewis, clients might scan the QR codes to carry up merchandise on-line and buy them. Within the digital model of the Christmas show, little interplay factors allowed clients to be taught extra a couple of product or vary and consider it on the net retailer.
- “Ease must be on the coronary heart of it.” It goes with out saying that an expertise shouldn’t make looking or purchasing tough or introduce extra friction, so every little thing concerning the expertise must work seamlessly.
- “It must be shoppable.” To Pointon, it isn’t sufficient to easily give clients extra details about a product or a special technique to expertise it; they want to have the ability to purchase in the event that they really feel impressed to.
Pointon gave two different examples of Christmas experiences that pushed the boundaries of what the retailer had beforehand achieved with expertise. The primary noticed John Lewis construct on the introduction of a function referred to as Digital Couch to its iOS app in early 2020, which enabled customers to make use of augmented actuality to visualise the position of a brand new couch of their home, serving to them to gauge the scale and elegance match with the area. As Christmas 2020 approached, the workforce alighted on the thought of introducing the identical function for Christmas bushes.
“Folks usually don’t measure whether or not a Christmas tree fits their lounge or not,” mentioned Pointon – making the introduction of Digital Christmas Tree to John Lewis’ iOS app in November 2020 a pure match (no pun supposed). Pointon famous that John Lewis noticed a 100% enhance in conversion for Christmas bushes after introducing the brand new function – and notably, noticed higher conversion charges via the app than via the web site. “Folks wish to interact with these experiences for those who make them shoppable,” she mentioned.
In 2021, John Lewis ventured into the budding realm of stay purchasing, broadcasting its first shoppable livestream – starring celeb stylist Gok Wan – in late September. Over the Christmas interval, it then hosted a number of festive stay purchasing classes, targeted on Christmas gifting, making ready for events, ‘Christmas internet hosting and feasting’, and vacation magnificence. Pointon mentioned that John Lewis’ Christmas stay purchasing occasions pulled in additional than 300,000 views collectively, and that the retailer additionally made certain there was synergy with its well-known Christmas advert by bringing all the merchandise that have been featured within the advert into the livestreams.
Three classes for bringing collectively the digital and bodily
Following its push to get customers again in retailer over the Christmas interval, John Lewis discovered that the Christmas Emporiums boosted buyer satisfaction by 10% – and {that a} excessive proportion of those that have been conscious of the emporiums visited them. Nevertheless, Pointon acknowledged that “consciousness was a problem” – one thing that would lead John Lewis to double down on driving consciousness of its Emporiums and Christmas shows in 2022.
1. “Be very clear in your buyer imaginative and prescient…”
Pointon additionally supplied some recommendation to retailers seeking to carry digital and bodily retail collectively to create new purchasing experiences. First, she mentioned, “Be very clear in your buyer imaginative and prescient and who your buyer is. What do they want? What do they need and anticipate?”
2. “Be clear about your model”
Pointon suggested retailers – “be clear about your model” and the way that may translate into the expertise. John Lewis needed to be “the house for Christmas”, and so all of its retail experiences have been constructed round that core concept.
3. “Be ruthless on what you measure”
Her third piece of recommendation to retailers was to “be ruthless on what you measure”. “Expertise individuals like to construct stuff,” she remarked – but it surely’s essential to not solely construct issues, but in addition to guage what works, what doesn’t work, and how one can scale. She cautioned retailers to not get too hung up on testing totally different concepts with out ever scaling them and placing them into apply extra absolutely. Whereas she acknowledged that “you’ve received to have that experimentation”, she additionally inspired retailers to consider “how shortly are you able to scale, and throughout which classes?”
Lastly, Pointon famous that “Folks don’t care about legacy programs – they simply anticipate issues to work and join once they go in-store.” This echoed her earlier factors concerning the significance of “ease” and clients’ expectation for manufacturers to “be related”: no matter expertise retailers introduce, and no matter experiences they create, want to simply work with out friction or compromises. Pointon added that John Lewis has been “fortunate sufficient” to work with some nice expertise companions in creating its retail experiences, who additionally gave recommendation on what to experiment with.
For John Lewis, mentioned Pointon, Christmas is “not simply concerning the advert”, as vital because it is perhaps. “We wish to be there for patrons whereas they’re interacting with the model.”
