Situ Live, the most chilled out store in the world
What: Situ Live, which bills itself as "a discovery playhouse to inspire your everyday", is an immersive consumer electronics experience store featuring 75 brands that is built for product trial rather than instant purchase.
Why it is important: Like Showfields, the new Situ Live store in London's Westfield White City merges a disruptive retail model with an experiential omnichannel approach.
Situ Live doesn't make money from selling products. Instead, brands pay Situ to feature in the space and to have independent, Situ-employed staff walk customers through them. Nothing in the store is actually available to buy. When customers discover something they're interested in at Situ Live, they scan a QR code that adds it to their wishlist on the Situ Live website. One more click from there will redirect them to the respective brand's ecommerce site, where the customer can buy directly through the brand, leaving Situ out of the transaction altogether. Through a partnership with AI and machine learning experts The Data Analysis Bureau, Situ also offers partner brands analytics and insights from the digital and physical channels.
But the big unknown at this time is whether this approach will deliver enough actual sales for participating brands, or whether they'll ultimately view Situ as more of a media space for advertising, engagement and gaining consumer insights, than as a pure selling platform.
The staff – who are either referred to as storytellers or demonstrators – aren't there to sell you anything, they're there to get you excited about the possibilities of the products and make sure you're having a good time.
Customers are invited to head to the "Nutrition Kitchen" to get a complementary cup of coffee to drink while browsing the store. A trained barista makes coffee on one of the featured coffee machines while talking customers through all of the other kitchen devices from well-known brands like Philips, Bosch and Sage.
The "On the move" Mobility section hosts a Maserati alongside e-bikes and scooters. The "Sleep and Wellbeing" bedroom space encourages customers to lay down on a connected Opera bed to experience the weightlessness of its zero-gravity feature.
The Lutron Connected living room space includes every Internet of Things-based product you could image, from speakers and lights to connected blinds.
The store also includes fitness, gaming and working from home zones, as well as a big "Central Park" relaxation space in the middle.