Amazon retail, a theory [Girvin]— bricks and mortar?
Brand, retail, retelling, retooling, rethinking. Retail and community, brand storytelling as a reflective sharing — the story of place, of culture, of wonder, embracement and connectivity.
There is a theory [Girvin] that retail is a kind of retelling — that a store is really a story, and that in any and every transaction, there is a story being told. A guest either gets it, listens to this story, or doesn’t. That process of telling is a kind of daily rethinking — how can I, as the retailer, newly tell this story? A journey — from start to finish, the opening of the door is the beginning of the journey, then that voyage continues into the “place” — the telling continues, from the bigger retail experience to the smallest — from major retail presence to microshopping. Each, a story.
Flip that, and how is the store itself, the brand — the story — legend, mythic, archetypal or otherwise. Given Amazon’s recent positioning on their move past online, to a physical retail presence, we offer our earlier explorations around Amazon retail, retelling the retail tailoring of the Amazon brand in the sense of metaphorical thinking and archetypes.
Story, here.
Explore the journey, as you will – as the River runs through it, so too the journey of the customer — who seeks the story, and in that voyage, becomes the story unto themselves. Being held in the containment of the story, they are the story to be shared.
Any store, in story, will ultimately be the gathering — the cumulation, the cumularity of clustered thinking and experience design.
The conclusion would be, to brand and retail, is that the story/store is reflective — it is not only the telling of the story from the store itself — it’s what lies within the culture of that telling, the foundations of the brand — how, symbolically or metaphorically, the story can flow seamlessly as a weaving, the warp and weft of the layering of the story in a manner that the story for retail then becomes “held” by the visitor, the guest, the shopper, [the customer]. That story then becomes their story — such is the heart of the relationship. Telling this story, then becomes shared — and the story is held by the experiencer — it’s their story, too.
The fabric of that ubiquity might be seen in relationships to Starbucks, or Nordstrom, where the experiencer tells their stories that sync back to the heart of the brand.
Where the heat is, the fire stroke of brand warmth.
Aligned, in all, it’s a powerful force to be reckoned with.
T | Pike Place Offices of GIRVIN
THE STRATEGY OF IMAGINATION +
EXPERIENCE = PLACE
DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTS:
PLACES | RETAIL | RESTAURANTS
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