October 24, 2012 10:17 by M. Aldalou

Upon meeting Anthony James, you immediately feel an inspiring presence of passion for what he believes in. He doesn’t have to be a great salesman to truly convince you that an idea is worth clinging on to and luckily enough, sales is relatively irrelevant to the growth of his industry.

He is the CEO and founder of the Sample Central store worldwide and what he describes as the pioneer of the “Tryvertising” industry, which encapsulates the ‘try before you buy’ retail model. To put it simply, the concept behind the store is to act as a blank canvas for brands to showcase their products in literally whatever way they see fit. For the customers, he describes it as a very unique destination experience.

The store, opened three weeks ago in Dubai is the first franchise expansion to this region – with a plan of expanding into the rest of the GCC. Sample Central is based on the concept that James created in 2007 and, if you judge a book by its cover, you could initially think it’s a supermarket but…

How is it any different than a supermarket?

“You shop for free. Money is not a valid currency in our store. Leave your wallets and money at home,” he chuckles. “Your feedback and your opinion is your currency. You become a member, book appointments for yourself and shop for free.”

Sample Central is a concept that brings to life the ‘theatre of retail’ as well as places customers in the driver’s seat when it comes to brand interaction. For an annual membership of AED 100, members can visit the store as frequently as they please (with a booking); pick out products to take home with them. Because of the simple power of word-of-mouth, the store has 1500 members and growing.

How many products can a customer take at one go?

When a member initially joins, they’re automatically a Bronze member and they can take 5 products home with them each visit, provided they give their feedback on them before the next visit. With each visit and each feedback form filled, they gain loyalty points and eventually they will be upgraded to Silver and Gold members. A consumer can become a member by signing up a form online on our website or physically at the store.

What happens after a member has taken the products and sampled them?

They will have their own web portal created as part of their membership account. After every visit, surveys will appear in their accounts based on the products they checked out. They spend a few minutes giving their honest opinion about each product. That’s all. After that they can book another appointment to visit and take home more products and try others.

What’s the catch?

There is none. The customer’s opinion and feedback is all that the brand really wants. We all have an opinion about something and some have opinions on everything. So it’s just giving the chance to a consumer to be influential.

Can you take anything you want from the store?

There are two categories of products – ones you can only try in the store – and ones you can take home for free with you. Obviously you can’t take a treadmill or power drill home with you but feel fry to play around with anything in the store. If you’re not interested in a particular product, then nobody’s forcing you. Nothing is behind glass; you can touch, feel, try, taste and interact with everything that’s in the store. It’s the ultimate flexibility in a retail space. More importantly, there is no sales pressure because there are no sales people. You would try a product the same way you would in your own home.

Wouldn’t members get bored of the same products?

The stocks are changed every 14 days! So you may not want to try something now but just remember – in two weeks – it might not be here either.

What’s in it for the brand then? Why try Tryvertising?

Not to be too hard on advertising and marketing agencies but let me ask you something. When was the last time that a television advertisement of a toothpaste brand made you run out and buy that toothpaste? It’s a lot easier for consumers to continue buying brands that they know and like so how can a brand really influence what you buy?

They blast the media with traditional advertising and marketing. Occasionally they hand out free samples at the malls and people gladly take them because they’re free. But does that really mean they are influencing their purchasing habits? Brands have to think about relevance. Are we targeting the relevant people at the correct time to change their habits?

That’s what we do here, putting the consumer at the centre of the experience, and allow them to make their own decisions. We facilitate that interaction for brands.

Consumers in today’s society are bombarded with messages. They have access to information, reviews to read and social media. They would rather know what toothpaste their friends are using rather than what the brand says. Especially with today’s economic situation, our consumers are saying ‘hey, it’s my money. I’ll spend it on the products that I want to buy’.

All we do is start the conversation. We start that real engagement between the consumer and the brand. That’s called the first moment of the truth. The second moment of truth is the consumer trying out a brand’s product. The third moment of truth is getting the feedback about that product.

How effective is it though, practically?

A lot of brands see this model as really influencing purchasing habits. For a fact, over 70 percent of our consumers have actually gone out and bought the real products after evaluating them with us, and we know this through our internal surveys.

Imagine walking into a hypermarket aisle and all you see is juice, how do you make that decision of which to buy? It’s become confusing and brands have this belief that the ‘more I put out there, the more the chance of consumers buying my product’ but it just adds more confusion to the market. I don’t know half the brands, nor do I have the time or energy to evaluate all the brands. There’s too much choice.

Ultimately, our model puts the consumer fundamentally at the centre of the experience. A member that comes into our store is the most important person in the planet. This is your store, nobody is here to force you or influence you. It’s an experimentation space in a retail environment that cuts through the noise and clutter of traditional advertising.

Let’s get to your business side though. What exactly is your revenue model then?

A lot of people have been extremely speculative about how the revenue model for Tryvertising should be. What that has caused is a lot of copycat stores popping up and failing. No copy Tryvertising stores that I’ve seen have lasted longer than 6 months.

You have to realise that I launched this model in 2007 but I didn’t start franchising the model until 2010. That’s because we spent three years learning from our mistakes and how to make this model work and because of that, we do keep our model close to our chest. What I will tell you is that it does take a lot of detail and thinking and we needed three years getting it right.

The mobile app could be branded and provided by retailers. Consumers would download the app and then input products they’re shopping for and their selection criteria.

For example, a shopper looking for breakfast cereal could specify a product that’s low in sugar, highly rated by consumers and on sale.

As the shopper pans the mobile device’s camera across a shelf of cereal boxes, the augmented shopping app will identify cereals that meet the criteria – and could also provide a same-day coupon or loyalty points.

Consumers could also opt in to include info from their social networks, such as reviews or comments from friends. Their preferences would be stored and added to during subsequent shopping trips to build a more robust preference profile.

On the front end, here’s how it would work: Upon entering a store, consumers download the app on their smart phone or tablet, register, and create a profile of features that matter to them – from product ingredients that will inflame an allergy, to whether packaging is biodegradable. When the shopper views a product via the camera viewfinder, the app recognizes it and, via augmented reality technology, overlays digital details on the image, such as ingredients, price, reviews, and discounts that apply that day.

“This will help you make a very accurate and precise decision relative to the criteria you have,” said John Kennedy, VP of corporate marketing for IBM Research.

Of course, the magic would happen on the back end, and that’s the big play for IBM.

IBM Research thinks that the app can help retailers offer marketing – in the form of product information, coupons or suggestions for related products – that would be welcomed by consumers. At the same time, the data it produces can give retailers insights into consumer trends.

But the devil is in the details. Exactly how this would work, data-wise, remains to be determined, according to Kennedy.

The app would pull information loaded by the retailer into its database running on IBM Smarter Commerce software, which IBM said provides a single view of the customer, inventory orders and shipments. But it’s unclear whether that database would contain all the criteria that might be important to an individual shopper, such as environmentally friendly packaging.

Kennedy could not say how the app would be packaged with other technology or services to provide a full product for retailers.

Nevertheless, IBM has a goal of releasing the technology by the end of the year, Kennedy said, adding, “At this point, it’s a demonstration of a really interesting technology that starts to provide a glimpse of how shopping will evolve. There’s more work to be done on the implementation and roll-out. The goal for IBM is that this would be another aspect of our relationship with retailers.”

Over time, the personalized approach was lost and consumers no longer felt the same loyalty to the retailer. Today, retailers are working to enhance their shoppers’ experience, knowing that at the same time customers have options to shop wherever and whenever they want, often without stepping inside a store. Retailers have to anticipate a shopper’s buying behavior, whether the route they take begins with a website, social site or the parking lot outside of their store. They need to provide a compelling and personalized way to rekindle the special bond between the shopper and their brand. It’s complex and confusing. But it also provides immense opportunities.

Following on Motorola Solutions’ Annual Holiday Survey in December 2011, we conducted a survey of 250 U.S.-based retail executives in May 2012 to understand what impact omni-channel retail trends are having on their business, the drivers to change and their plans to use mobile technologies within the next five years. The survey shows that merchants today are struggling with meeting consumers’ “want it here, want it now” mentality while finding the right balance between their online presence and brick and mortar store locations.

This paper examines the future of retail, including changing shopper mindsets and behaviors, and the new expectations shoppers have for their in-store experience.

Download the PDF here: What’s Driving Tomorrow’s Retail Experience?

The TV supplier is not unique. In our research we found that many consumer packaged goods companies invest heavily in content for their increasingly important online distributors. They are dedicating teams of 10 to 15 people from marketing and sales to optimizing their sales across all geographies and categories on Amazon.

Blending digital channels into a company’s overall multichannel approach requires changes beyond the sales force. In most of our interviews, sales leaders told us that embracing these new channels changed how the sales force interacted with product development, marketing, distributors, and customer services. In fact, the proliferation of touch points with customers means that boundaries are increasingly blurring within organizations. Companies that are thriving in the digital age are those that are able to figure out creative ways to pull together the best resources from across the organization. To achieve that level of cross-company collaboration, the world’s best sales organizations have often taken “sales beyond sales” by making each component see itself as contributing to the customer experience, be it product design, sales, customer service and even operations (for example, the internal IT department). This is the only way they can coordinate the customer experience across multiple channels.

For all the benefits a lighting company saw from investing in the online channel, it also found that customers preferred to keep certain aspects of the purchasing process offline. When developing a request for proposal, for example, customers still wanted to work over the phone or in person with the distributor or supplier. To make its online and offline multichannel setup work, the company expanded the role of the corporate digital marketing team. They worked with the sales team to design the hosted distributor sites, added an inside sales team to handle the leads coming out of the digital channel, refocused their sales staff on teaming with distributors to solve complex customer needs, and beefed up their technology and analytical capabilities to run their entire digital operations.

Once customer projects were completed, the digital marketing team sent follow-up e- mails encouraging customers to post case studies on the company’s Web site. The team then e-mailed these stories and related images to other customers and cross-posted to key lighting and design community sites. The e-mails also led back to the offline sales force, with phone numbers for specific salespeople who were trained to talk about the applications and related projects. In some markets, junior salespeople took turns monitoring community sites—answering questions, adding links to positive postings about their products, and announcing new models—activities that would have been done traditionally in marketing, and all of which contributed to that 15 percent boost in sales.

Digital channels continue to push the boundaries of selling, and, with the evolution of new technologies, sales leaders will have even more opportunities to find and attract prospects with customized offers. This may also mean relinquishing some control of the brand. Some executives will follow the lighting company’s lead and build online ecosystems that connect dealers with customers, and create social as well as technological platforms on which communities can thrive. Any sales leader with the ambition to be at the cutting edge of digital sales will certainly need to obsess about optimization, and be willing to take some risks and try new ideas such as Tesco’s innovative supermarket-in-a-subway-station approach in South Korea.

Social media is not just fashionable, it also has enormous potential. American Express’s Facebook campaign even helped independent retailers as well as its own revenues. The best companies integrate these digital channels seamlessly into their sales setup. It is increasingly common for customers to browse an online store catalog, go to a store to see the product “in the flesh”, compare a couple of alternatives using their smartphone while they are in the shop, and then make an informed buying decision.

Sportsgirl is taking a futuristic approach to its fashion boutiques with 3D window displays around the country featuring collages created by the British artist Mat Maitland.

Customers can use 3D glasses available in store to view the eye-popping graphics by Maitland, who has produced artwork and campaigns for the likes of Beck, Goldfrapp and Michael Jackson.

”In a challenging retail environment, we are communicating with customers on the go while at the same time delivering a fun and interactive experience,” Sportsgirl’s chief executive, Elle Roseby, said.

The windows follow Sportsgirl’s launch of an interactive mirror that enables a customer to share her experience in the fitting room with her peers online via Twitter and Facebook. People can take a photograph of themselves in their potential new outfit using a reflective digital mirror in the changeroom, then use the mirror’s touchscreen to share the photograph on their own Facebook or Twitter page for feedback from their friends.

”Our bricks and mortar stores remain as important to us as our digital strategy,” she said. ”It is crucial for us to create as much integration between the two … providing our customer with the ability to interact with friends online whilst in our stores.”

Knitting classes, fine dining restaurants and free styling sessions are among the initiatives on offer in other shops aimed at offering unique experiences that are not available on the internet.

This year, the Corner Shop held free knitting classes at its boutique in the Strand Arcade that were sponsored by the Knitters’ Guild of NSW.

Across Pitt Street Mall in Westfield Sydney, Cara&Co boutique has a Flemish restaurant with a menu created by the Michelin-star Belgian chef Dave De Belder.

The restaurant is designed to dovetail with the experiential ”five senses” approach to bricks and mortar retail of Cara&Co, owner Rosa Alpert said.

Hungary opens it doors on Friday 25 November to Europe’s first free store (tryvertising store) in the Court Yard of Gozsdu. This five-hundred-square meter store contains everything from cosmetics and household supplies, food, consumer electronics and cleaning products – all can be tested, tried, and taken home. All this for a one-time registration fee and annual membership fee which must be paid in order to become a member (6,480 forints is all!).

The store changes all the product every two weeks, with members allowed to take home up to five products in their visit. They then complete a short online questionnaire to give their opinion about the products they selected: this is the payment for the good instead of money.

Sample Central caters for all consumers, even those that do not have internet connection at home.

Consumer do not come to Sample Central and randomly take or try products. “The Sample Central model has the ability to revolutionise the way market research and sampling, brand advertising and marketing works. Our global figures tell us that more than 80% of members who like a product after trying it in Sample Central actually go an purchase those products” – explained Laura Novotny, Sample Central Communications Manager.

The design and layout of the store is like nothing before seen in Hungary.

About Sample Central
Sample Central was the pioneer in what today is know as Tryvertising, the word was invented to describe the business. After a length process of rebranding the business from Sample Lab, Sample Central is now positioned to spread across Europe with severl stores launching in countries over the next few months. Some countries are still available and can be applied for at www.sample-central.com

Sample Central, Budapest currently has the following companies products on their shelves which can be taken home for FREE: Johnson & Johnson (Listerine), Danone, Soos Pastry, Tante Fanny, Apple (iPad, MacBook), Flamber Ltd. (Indian washing nuts), Hungerit, frozen Mirsa, Novetex, Pureste, EVM Zrt (WU2) Coordwell (Spirulina Algae), Herstal (cold sore cream), Breastlight, Bábolna Bio (meal moth), Buszesz Ltd., Veritas Gold, Watts, Bird and Sons, Gilan Trading (Kalifa products), Spotless Hungary (Color Fingerboard cloth), Neo FM, MedEssence: sound test.

Sample Central to open in Budapest November 4

MTI – Econews

Monday, October 3, 2011, 5:30 PM CET

Sample Central, a store where consumers can try out new products in exchange for feedback, will open in Budapest on November 4, Sample Central told MTI on Monday.