In recent years, consumer expectations of the experience offered in physical retail outlets have evolved significantly. In this context, the rise of new technologies and digital platforms has created both opportunities and challenges. Today, it’s clear that brands need to operate differently, and ideally in an omnichannel way, in order to offer consumers a coherent, seamless 360° experience across all their communication platforms. What impact does this new paradigm have on the process of creating physical retail spaces? Brands, designers, service providers and suppliers: how do they approach this new challenge? At the crossroads of several disciplines, retail design must integrate all these stakeholders and open up to new skills in order to successfully reconcile commercial performance, user experience, CSR issues and best convey the brand’s image and values.
