When a digital-first upstart opens a store full of stuff that looks good in videos rather than just products, eyebrows are raised among many retail people.

I take retailers to these stores and explain that they are focused not only on selling product but creating content online: they are, essentially, digital stimuli.

And I often see their eyebrows rise a little again. Because ultimately, they’re thinking “sure, but where’s the ROI on that”.

For me, it’s a continued blindspot that misunderstands new customer journeys.

Offline to online

Though they’re by no means the pioneers of this idea, Glossier offer one of the best examples.

Their flagships in Covent Garden, London and SoHo, New York, sell plenty of product. But it doesn’t take a genius to realise that something else is happening in those stores.

They are, in a sense, like walking into an immersive social media post. Every corner of each store has been designed with the amateur photographer in mind. It would be hard to take a pic that didn’t look good on your feed.

But Glossier, being a digital-first brand, understands that this isn’t all just fluffy, PR nonsense. Glossier was built online – their customers are innately digital.

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