Health and Beauty’s 80/20 Rule Is Rapidly Changing. Is Your Store Ready?

Traditionally,health and beautystores stocked their shelves with 80% basics and 20% items that would delight and surprise shoppers. E-commerce changed that balance. With a click on your device, you can instantly order everything from shampoos to body soaps, eyeliner to nail polish.To drive shoppers into stores, health and beautyretailers need to provide outside-of-the-box experiences, educational opportunities and highly engaged staff. There’s nothing basic about physical retail anymore.

Showrooms stress staff interaction

We touched on this in prior posts, but we can’t stress enough how stores find themselves evolving into showrooms. [bctt tweet=”The successful new physical retail model provides experiences that can’t be replicated through e-commerce. ” username=”medallionretail”]That might include personalization, super service and in-person technology (think virtual and augmented reality).

These showrooms are heavy on human interaction. While there’s a lot of hype about automatic checkout in retail, there’s also a recognition that customers like talking to knowledgeable people about what to purchase—see the success of Sephora and Ulta. And guess what: these knowledgeable, trained staff are fabulous at upselling.

In the vast majority of traditional stores, shoppers only interact with the store staff at checkout – the exact wrong place for an upsell. You should find ways to reach customers while they’re still shopping for luxurious skin care, makeup and hair boosts, and enticing scents–and primed to listen to new ideas.

And it’s new ideas that are driving today’s brick and mortar sales.

Big on education

When health and beauty customers shop in-store they’re not just seeking products, they’re also searching for guidance. Helpful information takes various forms – from floor staff to signage. Shelf tags are one of the easiest and lowest cost tools to highlight new colors, innovative products, trending concepts, and seasonal rescues. Health and beauty lend themselves beautifully to discovery zones, See this example of how CVS is taking on education in a big way from sleep aids to beauty trends.

CVS, the nation’s largest drugstore chain,is maximizing information signage on good-for-you and diet-specific foods – high-protein, low-fat, sugar-free, gluten-free, organic, non-GMO – are given a shout-out with shelf tags. CVS’s plan is to use shelf stags strategically throughout all stores, not just in the food aisle, to help customers choose what’s best for them.CVS is also maximizing information signage on its beauty “trend wall” to highlight new launches and niche brands.

CVS is rolling out its information-friendly strategy across product areas and is going large with display. For instance, can’t-miss giant Zs are topped with sleep supplements, sleep masks, and aromatherapy products. Because there’s no single solution that suits everyone, CVS is tapping into the personalization trend–you pick the best option(s) for you.

These wellness “Discovery Zones” are large, inviting spaces, and five years ago, it would have been unthinkable to allocate so much square footage, especially in the non-luxury sector, to disruptive display. By amping up signage and display to guide shoppers and make their purchase decisions easier, CVS is making health and beautyshopping more convenient and immediately gratifying, in a way that surfing a website never can.

Eileen Fisher’s retail mecca – “ohm’s” that lead to “ahs”

Digital shopping has its conveniences, but it pales in comparison when it comes to the connections you experience via in-person shopping.Immerse your customers in demonstrations and hands-on activities. Nothing compares—not even videos on YouTube—to the sights, sounds, feel, and community-building of in-person experiences. Just as Eileen Fisher is applying this premise to clothes, retailers can apply hands-on activities to health and beauty.

Eileen Fisher, the icon of chic, sustainable, comfy clothes, could easily use all of its floor space for selling. However, as part of its new Making Spacecommunity-centered retail experience, the fashion brand is trading in sales fixtures for workshops and neighborhood events. Rather than cram in one more t-stand with yummy sweaters and wraps, the retailer is making space for experience and community. Floor displays highlight how to repurpose worn clothes, and story boards enlighten shoppers about textiles, applications and artists. Health and beauty retailerscan take a page from Fisher to create the kind of high-touch, high-emotion experience that you can only get in person. It’s a perfect match!

REI – real experience in-store

From training materials to informational displays, when your floor staff is equipped with deep product knowledge, they become an indispensable and trusted source of information—thereby increasing shopper retention and maximizing revenue per visit. This premise applies across the retail spectrum. REI’s staff displays their savvy and knowledge about outdoor clothes and gear, but this approach could just as well apply to health and beauty.

REI has always embraced the 80/20 rule in its stores. The company has built high-touch personal interaction into its sales DNA, with some of the most knowledgeable, well-trained staff I’ve encountered along with highly educational in-store signage. It’s a special experience every time I walk in – because of its people. I know someone will guide me when I need help.

But even successful specialty retailers like REI are evolving. “If you’re specialty, how do you differentiate?” asks REI CEO Jerry Strizke, Now, newer REI stores are turning sales space over to community space, and the Washington, D.C., flagship (the co-op’s fifth) features in-store classes and shops that flow into common areas so that all visitors can be inspired and delighted by new info. “…community, experiences, and doing it both in-store and online,” says Stritzke, “You could argue that’s old-school retail strategy, but it’s still relevant.”

What would happen this time of year, if you held in-store demonstrations about battling dry heat for skin and hair or the latest holiday make-up trends? What about interactive displays with what’s new in scents from perfumes to body balms? The communal experience of sharing and learning can turn shopping into a more satisfying experience.

Inspired legacies, evolving in-store strategies

It’s clear that brick and mortar needs to evolve in a more digital world and that the 80/20 rule is flipping around. We’ve highlighted three legacy brands – REI has been around since 1938, CVS since 1963, and Eileen Fisher since 1984 – that are responding to what shoppers want today: both physical in-store anddigital online options.

For these brands and many more, the decision to move away from decades of traditional floor space utilization was probably fraught with heated discussion, but survival isn’t about easy choices.Too many in brick and mortar abide by the mantra to squeeze every dollar from the retail floor. These brands show that you can drive health and beautysales by bringing people together – shoppers with staff, shoppers with like-minded enthusiasts, shoppers who are on a journey to discovery. There’s a synergy that you create that, at the end of the day, lights up your customer and your revenues.

Medallion Retail has been helping health and beautyretailers evolve with signage and display for more than 50 years. Learn what we can do for your stores. Reach out to Michael Decker or Chris Gordon today at engage@medallionretail.comor call 212-929-9130.