The New Rules for Succeeding in Retail

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For ABC Carpet & Home, a privately-held, family-owned luxury home furnishing company, this involves a transformation of its seven-story Manhattan retail location to four floors.

According to Angela Gruszka, VP marketing and creative, the seven floors are challenging for the customer. By reducing their footprint from seven stories to four, ABC Carpet & Home can provide a more personalized experience. “We looked at consumer trends when we were planning our renovation,” says Gruszka. “We want to have an amazing customer experience and be known as the ‘experiential retailor.’ This remodel will enable us to elevate the customer experience.”

Personalization is something we talk about a lot when it comes to direct mail campaigns, but it is becoming even more important in the retail shopping environment. Customers today want and expect a personalized and seamless shopping experience. Some retailers are going as far as creating showrooms — a comfortable environment to peruse products, get advice and place an order. The products are then shipped directly to the consumer’s home. This kind of showroom approach doesn’t work for every product, but for differentiated goods, like branded fashion apparel, home furnishings, the newest electronic gadgets or expensive jewelry, this can work very well. Generally, these kinds of products are more difficult to sell online because consumers prefer to browse for these items, examine them and even seek out advice about what to buy.

ABC Carpet & Home is taking this approach as it looks to provide a curated experience. But, they are also looking at how technology can help make that experience even better for its customers.