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Specialty retailers are in many ways the ultimate customer experience specialists.
Freed from the constraints of big box chains, specialty stores focus on a specific product category or niche market. They cater directly to customers, carrying high-quality products sold by knowledgeable staff – all of which can translate into memorable experience for customers.
In recent years, the specialty retail sector has survived the “shockwaves” of the COVID-19 pandemic – with its inventory challenges and supply chain disruptions – and emerged stronger than ever. Experts say a “postpandemic revolution” of pent-up demand is driving shoppers to specialty stores as they seek more in-person browsing and buying.
All of which makes customer experience more vital than ever.
“The customer experience is important to our success because it sets us apart from the competition,” said Scott A. Goczkowski, general manager for home and garden at Lurvey Home & Garden outside of Chicago. The store employs a highly knowledgeable staff and features products ranging from nursery stock and garden art to “the largest selection of natural stone in the Chicagoland area.”
“A good memorable experience keeps customers coming back in for the many different products we sell,” Goczkowski said in a recent interview with The Experience Maker.
Some Specialty Retailers Offer Sensory Experiences
The specialty retail industry includes a wide range of categories, from boutique stores such as florists, art supply stores, and vintage record stores to larger establishments that focus on a specific product line, such as The LEGO Store. Other categories include chocolate, spices, sunglasses, pets, soccer equipment, stationary, luggage, and even sewing machines.
Specialty retailers nationwide are following Goczkowski’s example, offering curated products and services, hiring smart staff, getting involved in their local communities, and using technology to improve guest experience.
In Nashville, Tenn., Hatch Show Print specializes in technology from the past with a modern and timeless touch. A working letterpress print shop operating since 1879, it designs and prints unique concert and other posters.
The Music City icon is perhaps best known for a sensory, hands-on experience that includes workshops and a tour that has attracted national publicity.
“Learn all about the history of this iconic letterpress poster shop,” the retailer’s website boasts. “Listen to the presses run. See the century-and-a-half’s worth of brilliantly colored posters printed for your favorite entertainers. Smell the ink.”
At The Spice House in Chicago and Milwaukee, visitors begin smelling the intoxicating aromas from nearly a block away. The nearly 70 year-old specialty retailer “is a purveyor of the finest spices, herbs, blends, and extracts to customers ranging from renowned Michelin-star chefs to home cooks everywhere, according to its website. Its products “range from essential and rare spice varietals to proprietary rubs and blends,” and is a long-time favorite of this writer/amateur cook.
Did Somebody Say Chocolate?
At The Meadow, a Portland, Oregon-based specialty food shop, the focus is more on providing experience through product – such as the several hundred chocolate bars it sells, one for nearly every day of the year.
“You could easily get lost exploring the more than 100 salts from various sources, many flavored, on the shelves opposite” the chocolate, The New York Times noted about the shop’s Manhattan location and its “unusual inventory of chocolate bars, salts, and bitters.”
The retailer, which follows a guiding philosophy of “creating a place that feels like home,” says it is devoted to filling that home with “ridiculously high-quality products.”
Apparently, it’s succeeding. And that leads to some great experiences for hungry customers.
And nailsaloon – a “nail salon and cocktail parlor” chain in the Washington, D.C. area – offers a combo punch of two experiences in one. “Their signage is witty, they serve drinks (with or without alcohol) and provide a very organic product and environment for their clients,” said customer Gina Schaefer, who also founded a retail chain called A Few Cool Hardware Stores.
A Growing Industry Appeals to Multiple Generations
A recent survey illustrated that the specialty retail industry’s focus on customer experience appears to be paying off.
It showed that a majority of respondents say they prefer to shop at specially stores over big-box retailers, based on their desire to find something unique. Perhaps most notably, a majority of Gen Z and millennial shoppers favored the browsing experience and new products offered by specialty retailers over big-box stores.
Indeed, statistics show that even amid fierce competition from online and larger retailers, the specialty retail industry is rapidly growing. One recent analysis reported that industry earnings are up 15 percent in the past year and are expected to grow by 10 percent annually.
Specialty Retailers: Customer Experience Examples
Cat & Mouse Games, a local toy store in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago that unfortunately did not survive the pandemic, nonetheless understood its role as a local business. I highlighted this retailer in my book, The Experience Maker: How To Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait To Share.
Cat & Mouse trained its employees like Amazon’s recommendation engine; you tell them a board game you like, and they give you four more that you should try.
The store’s most distinctive feature, though, was in the back: a board game library. Shoppers could check out a game, sit down at a table, and try out the game before purchasing it. The store even hosted weekly game nights for singles.
For that kind of exceptional value, Cat and Mouse’s customers were willing to stay local and pay a couple of dollars more for a game, rather than buying it on Amazon. At least until the pandemic hit.
Also offering a distinctive touch – and taking advantage of the post-COVID era – is Les Amis boutique in Seattle. Store manager Emily Childress says that post-COVID, “people are relishing beautiful things to admire and wear, after so many dressed-down years.”
Sales are growing more than 10 percent a year, partly due to highly personalized touches such as handwritten receipts.
Les Ami’s focus on in-store experience is so total it does not even offer online sales.
From Boating To Birds: Specialty Retailers’ Customer Experience
Other specialty retailers focus on technology.
Boat dealer MarineMax, for example, offers what is becoming increasingly popular in the industry: an immersive online boat and yacht tour where prospective buyers can “step onboard and take a full 360 view of a boat of your dreams.”
The specialty boat retailer provides customers with what it calls a tailored experience that goes from ship to shore, including service, engine upgrades, storage options and even tips for boating with pets.
Related: How the Boating Industry’s Immersive Experiences are Driving Record Growth
At Wild Birds Unlimited, the focus is on potential pets that take to the air rather than the sea. A nature and wildlife franchise that specializes in helping hobbyists enjoy birds in nature, the chain thrives on its consumer-centric culture.
That smart focus comes through in staff training and use of customer experience metrics. The chain trains new staff members on “backyard bird feeding, bird watching and product knowledge,” while every sales interaction with a customer is followed by a detailed assessment of the experience.
Even O.G. Industries are Reinventing the Experience
Despite struggling as an industry, one bookstore is on a mission to provide customers with an extra dose of experience. Rather than offering just “books on shelves,” Bookshop Santa Cruz strives to stand out from the competition. The seaside California community institution has been open since 1966 and once had a waterbed in the center of the store.
Today, it is famed for a circular bench in the main aisle where customers can read and people-watch for hours on end. Casey Coonerty Protti, who runs the bookshop, says a wooden rocking horse in the children’s section, saved from a 1989 earthquake that destroyed the bookstore before it was rebuilt, stands as “the symbol that got us through the earthquake, chain stores, Amazon, Covid, e-books and more.”
The bookstore’s staff provides a testament to the kind of customer experience that only specialty retailers can provide. “Each and every one of them love books,” the store says, “and thrive on the experience of helping to find just the right book for every customer.”
And at Bernina Sewing Centers, a sewing machine retailer in Kansas City, the experience begins as soon as a customer walks in the door.
“When they walk in the door they have to have that warm fuzzy [feeling], said manager Joel Schwery. “The best feeling possible to keep them coming back.”
As an added touch, employees are trained to send flowers to customers after a machine purchase – the cost of which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Why go to that additional length to be memorable to customers?
“Without that customer, we’re nowhere – dead in the water,” said Schwery.
Conclusion
A variety of specialty retailers excel in crafting unique and memorable customer experiences, which distinguish them from larger competitors. By focusing on personalized service and high-quality products, they continue to attract and delight customers who prefer a unique shopping experience.
This is part of a series of industry articles featuring customer experience examples that any company can use. Spice image by sh ahn from Pixabay; Lurvey Home & Garden image by Dan Gingiss.
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