“Often times, a customer will see a product in a catalog, try it in person in our store, and then go home that night and purchase it online.” – Brookstone CEO Tom Via
The rise of online sales and services has been the downfall of a number of well-established brick-and-mortar stores: Borders, Radio Shack, Blockbuster, and many other huge brands have been forced to close their doors or file bankruptcy.
Some businesses have found a way to adapt. Brookstone is one of them. The multi-platform retail company first advertised itself in 1965 as the place to buy “hard to find” tools. Today, over 50 years later, Brookstone still provides consumers with unique, high quality products, but does so beyond the confines of brick-and-mortar.
Rather than fighting the shift towards online shopping, Brookstone has embraced the change. “Online sales don’t so much take an ever-bigger piece of the pie as much as they make the whole pie bigger,” CEO Tom Via said. “Search optimization enables us to reach more shoppers from every point along the buying continuum, from awareness to purchase, than we could ever do using brick-and-mortar stores alone.”
Incorporating online sales into its business model isn’t the only online initiative for Brookstone. The company recently partnered with Indiegogo for Brookstone Launch, which makes successfully funded projects a reality. Working with the platform’s unique community of innovators gives Brookstone an inside track on the very latest products their consumers are hungry for (for example, their Cat Ear Headphones, which were hugely popular at CES 2016) and keeps online engagement high. On the other hand, fledgling products and innovators benefit, too. “They get access to Brookstone’s end-to-end product development and marketing expertise. The partnership with Indiegogo is a win-win situation,” said Via.
But is it all about moving retail online? Via says it’s not. Both their retail stores and, perhaps surprisingly, their catalog play an important role in Brookstone’s staying power. “We see Brookstone stores as something like CES at the mall. It’s where people go to physically discover and try new products and technologies. At the end of the day, there’s no substitute for getting into a new 3D full-body massage chair or hearing how great noise-cancelling headphones sound,” Via explained. As for the catalogs? “Catalogs continue to play a vital role in driving both brand awareness and high-intent traffic to our stores and Brookstone.com.”
At least for Brookstone, adapting your PoP model doesn’t mean abandoning tried-and-true retail methods. Instead, it means re-evaluating what role your traditional sales methods (like a brick-and-mortar store) play in your overall strategy (i.e., “part retail, part entertainment, part brand building”) while incorporating new PoP channels. “Oftentimes, a customer will see a product in a catalog, try it in person in our store, and then go home that night and purchase it online. Finding the best ways to make all the channels work together will be essential for any company to succeed in the next few years.”
