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Shoppers Need a Reason to Go to Your Store — Other Than Buying Stuff

Harvard Business Review

Many retailers (even banks) incorporate cafés to engage the senses and encourage consumers to linger, such as Restoration Hardware’s new 70,000-square-foot place in Chicago, which features a courtyard café, an espresso bar, and a wine room. Consider what I think is the best new retail format in ages: Eataly.

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Make Customers Want to Buy Offline

Harvard Business Review

Yet for each Radio Shack and Barnes and Noble fighting for its life, there are still those beloved corner stores and discount chains that manage to thrive. Backcountry.com and Zappos, for example, are excellent online retailers, but they haven’t displaced REI or the local shoe store, because people value that hands-on expertise.

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