Using your products to tell a story is a powerful way to inspire the imagination of customers. Whether customized at the store level or handed down from the corporate office, visual displays inform shoppers about seasonal trends, brand lifestyles, or product benefits—and engender confidence and purpose. Grocery: The best that visual displays get in most […]

By Andrew McQuilkin Everything starts with a store’s product assortment and how the various sizes, shapes, and packaging of products influence the fixtures on which they’re presented. For both department stores and grocery stores, these fixtures have become highly specialized. Grocery: The four basic loose fixture types include cold/frozen cases, produce bins, service cases and […]

By Andrew McQuilkin Each month brings with it another new dominant headline on how one of our most frequent shopping experiences—buying groceries—will be forever changed. Curbside pickup. Driverless cars delivering to our homes. Automatic checkouts. The technological rush shows a willingness by the largest chains to ensure they outmaneuver upstarts and avoid suffering the same […]

Each month brings with it another new dominant headline on how one of our most frequent shopping experiences – buying groceries – will be forever changed. Curbside pickup. Driverless cars delivering to our homes. Automatic checkouts. The technological rush shows a willingness by the largest chains to ensure they outmaneuver online upstarts and avoid suffering […]

If our five senses determine how we perceive the world, brick-and-mortar businesses should plan experiential moments that leverage all the power of our senses to create a brand impression. This is where physical retail has the most significant advantage over online. And since there are millions of combinations, each retailer can deliver a brand promise that is memorable — an impression beyond location, quality, price, selection and service.

Andrew McQuilkin, retail market leader at BHDP, discusses ways his team helps retailers design with shopper’s safety in mind by creating safe stores. During a recent European Department Store conference session on the global purchasing power of Chinese nationals, a fellow audience member—the president of a major department store—whispered to me: “No one’s talking about […]