Pre-booked retail experiences are better
Hello. It's Mark Sandeno. I am here with
Speaker 2:I'm Chip. Chip. He's
Speaker 1:of Of Snohomish, Washington.
Speaker 2:Snohomish, Washington, CTO of the Experiences app.
Speaker 1:Collectively, we are people who work on experiences. We are all about the business of bringing people together, and we create technology to do so in the experiences app, which can be found at experiencesapp .com. Today, we're gonna talk about something that we fervently believe. And then we're gonna talk about an experience that we found someone who recently joined our platform that we think is really cool. This is what we believe, Chip.
Speaker 1:Booked experiences are better than experiences that are not pre booked. Yeah. And I'm specifically I'm not talking about going near the big stadium concert where you have to pre book for your ticket, or they won't let you in. Yeah. I'm not talking about booking airline tickets, which are all part of experiential stuff.
Speaker 1:Right? I'm talking about the everyday retailer that exists out there, and they are either going to put something out in the world that people can discover and book and say, Hey, I want to go to there, or the fact that people are just gonna show up and just stumble onto it. And in our point of view, it experiences as book experiences are better for everyone than serendipity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that the, the idea of just sitting around in your shop waiting for people to come in and even if you have the coolest product in the world, it's it's silly not to capitalize on this, phenomenon that we're seeing out there where people are actively looking at home. They're starting their experience at home, and looking for something to do. And and they wanna find your shop that has the cool product, but also has something that they can tell all their friends about.
Speaker 1:Okay, Luke. Well yeah. Great point. Let's break it down. Alright.
Speaker 1:And I call this the YouVillage effect. So in Seattle, where we live, near where we live, we don't live in Seattle.
Speaker 2:Seattle has been defended if if we even consider ourselves living in Seattle.
Speaker 1:You and I happen to live in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Ironically, maybe not so because we kinda saw this happening. Same model of home, just a a couple blocks apart. Yeah. So yeah. But in in the Seattle area, there's this, outdoor mall, really nice mall called BU Village.
Speaker 1:And it's one of these modern, very polished, very curated, malls. It's mostly outdoor. They have their anchor tenants. They have the Lululemon's. They have the Williams Sonoma, they have the restoration hardware, and then they have the big monolithic Apple store, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:Right? And the average satellite might say, I need to go to the Apple store. I need to go to the Lululemon store. I'm going to go to Warby Parker. I'm going to go to Bonobos.
Speaker 1:But there's also a degree of, hey. Let's just go to U Village and hang out. Let's go sit outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of restaurants and things like that. It's it's a good place to kinda just, not have a direction necessarily.
Speaker 1:Right. Just a wander. I'm gonna have a good wander down at the village. And, it's accessible, and there's probably not too many places like that in the Seattle area. Up of a little bit farther north, we have the Aldarwood Mall.
Speaker 1:And then we have very walkable walkable little mini cities. Like, where you and I live, and I was just there a few minutes ago, you have Snohomish, Washington, which is an antique y city that city dwellers flock to because it's close by, and it's coined, and it's, like, a 1000 years old. I don't know how old it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's at least
Speaker 1:a 1000 years old. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we we thrive off of the, agro tourism. You know, like, once a year during when everybody wants decides they want a pumpkin in their house, Like, they it's just like Snohomish comes alive.
Speaker 1:Man, Bob's corn, which is not 10 or 15 minutes from my home and their corn maze and their, you know, the candy apple stand and the the elephant ear. Corn. It is insane, and people drive out. That by the way, that's really funny because there's at least 4 or 5 of those style attractions within 5 to 10 minutes driving of where we live. Because we live, dear listener, up on a hill overlooking this agriculture area called Snohomish.
Speaker 1:Now I went to Snohomish High School. We called it Kalpipie High. But, Chip, you were, like, up near in Arlington where that was that's even farther north. That's full on country. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's beyond the, like, boutique farm. It's it's more of the, like, legit. I mean, not that there aren't legit farms in Snohomish.
Speaker 2:But,
Speaker 1:was it like a required class for high schoolers there? Was to gather under a bridge on the river with a a can of PBR in your hand to learn about Arlington history?
Speaker 2:Probably. We don't condone underage drinking, though.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:It was empty. It was a prop. Yeah. I do I do find this kinda fun because these farm experiences are a lot of fun, and they're kind of a show up thing. Show up, pay $5 for parking.
Speaker 1:You go in. You can get a wristband. Oh, hey. You can do the with this with this package, you can do the the corn maze, the pig chase, the trout slap.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh. The Quite different from the You village experience to
Speaker 1:bring back our full be the circle. But you can always spot a city person. I mean, it's not like we live in the country. We're smack dab in houses stacked pretty close together
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Suburbia. But you can you can always you always can recognize the city dweller or the east sider, right, from Bellevue or Redmond
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just by the cars they drive and the way they're dressed. It's like, oh, you're not you're not from here. This is this is you roughing it in the country today. Your $500 knee high boots and your cable knit sweater from Ralph Lauren. Yep.
Speaker 1:So anyways, you the the YouVillage effect, I guess it kind of applies to these experiences, is, hey. I'm gonna show up, and I'm gonna find something to do. So if I go to U Village, it's like, hey. Well, I'm gonna go over here and look at this. What do you wanna do with the kids?
Speaker 1:Oh, we'll wander around. Maybe we'll get some froyo and see what kind of stores are there. Mhmm. Okay. That has been the model for many, many, many years
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where retailers will say, I'm going to pay top dollar for this Class A First Street prime location, real estate. And I'm going to spend a bunch of money on tenant improvements and,
Speaker 2:and then devote everything I can to, getting the, the big people like apple, like it's, it's kind of a chicken and an egg thing to get both, your big tenant people with your, you know, smaller, smaller, boutique shops. And those come together to bring, to bring people in sport of serendipitously.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's, that's the landlord problem. And we have we actually have a client who is a landlord of these kind of outdoor malls through the southwest, and that's what they they've said is, if we get the big anchor tenants, it drives high quality smaller tenants. It brings people into the space. And let's say, hey.
Speaker 1:I have Apple and Lululemon. I know that that's going to drive restaurant traffic, bar traffic, and I'm gonna be able to support a bunch of smaller 1000 square foot tenants, doing things like homeware stores and off brand clothing stores and the like. But the reason we say that booked, prebooked shopping, or pre booked experiential is better than that is unless you have that kind of brand draw, and by the way, even these brands are doing what we're talking about. But unless you have that kind of brand draw, you are dependent on the serendipitous nature of people just being willing to show up to your local You village. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And just like, oh, yeah. I guess we're kinda hungry, or Boy, I really like that Pendleton blanket this retailer is merchandising. Right? Yeah. And I will even go farther and say that it's better than direct to consumer advertising, that comes in your Penny Mailer, or advertising in general.
Speaker 1:Booked experiences are are better. Mhmm. They have a higher customer lifetime value. They have a higher average order value than non prebooked experiences. So let's let's talk about what that is and how to do it and what we see across our customer base.
Speaker 2:I think just one more point on that that's that's cool is the the idea that your small shop becomes the destination in a in a mall that normally people are there, like, oh, I gotta go I gotta go to the Apple Store. And like, all of a sudden, if if you kind of adapt to this model, you you become like, oh, I'm going to a place like the U village, not because I need to go to the Apple store, but because I have something booked at, you know, Joe's candle pouring or something like that.
Speaker 1:And and and it it it doesn't necessarily have to be a u village. It can just it Mhmm. The power the power of thinking rightly about this means you don't necessarily have to have Main Street class a storefront, actually. You can be 5 blocks back, and maybe it's you have to drive through a parking lot or 2 and go around the back. That the power of being able to do this right means that whether you're in a very expensive space and you want to make better use of that investment or you are in somebody's garage in the outskirts of town Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Doing this right puts you in command and control of the monetization of the special thing you do.
Speaker 3:The experiences podcast is sponsored by The Experiences app. As a modern retailer, you know that offering book able experiences brings people together to create happy memories with your goods and services at the center of the action. With the experiences app, you can add book able experiences to any Shopify store with just a few clicks. It seamlessly integrates with any existing Shopify theme and allows for your customers to book future experiences and pay for them through your store or the Shopify point of sale when they arrive. From cat cafes to brewery tours, from candle making workshops to goat yoga.
Speaker 3:You can create memorable experiences for your brand that will bring your customers together to gladly spend their money with you and share their happy memories with the world. Go to experiencesapp.com to learn how you can add bookable experiences to your Shopify store and enjoy all the easy to use features and fantastic support you'll need to succeed as the kind of business people just can't wait to visit. That's experiencesapp.com.
Speaker 1:Today, we're gonna today, specifically, we're gonna just talk about the idea of preplanned, pre vouch for booked retail experiences versus serendipitous experiential. And I will I'll say one more thing. The the idea of experiential commerce, that's been around forever. And the core definition of that is you giving people a reason to engage with your brand, your retail space for more than just the products or services you sell. And that's where you get really amazing spaces.
Speaker 1:And let's use Apple, for instance. You go into an Apple store, it's like, I just feel special. Mhmm. I just feel special being here. Another one is crazy.
Speaker 1:It's it's Gentle Monster. They sell sunglasses, but you go in there, it's like an animatronic museum meets, like, surreal props. It's unbelievable. I've seen some of their spaces. But we're specifically talking about Booked Experiential.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the destination here, where are we taking you, with our this point of view? We want you or we think you should because we're seeing this play out successfully across our 100. We have thousands of customers. We have hundreds of daily active customers who are using technology in their retail environment, but first online and then merging it with the in store experience to offer prebook stuff.
Speaker 1:So if you can capture desire for people to have an experience, wherever they are, you can compel them to travel to wherever you are to consume it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and to be clear, this isn't prebook stuff like I I bought a thing online, and then I'm just gonna come pick it up. Right? This is this is to do a thing in your store and potentially buy products there.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And so we have, you know, you have entertainment, you have, workshops and classes, you have things that are about pre booking something, pre buying something that does bring you in. So there's a combination of all this stuff. But the goal here is not just to be pure play entertainment, but the merging of the thing you sell, the good and service, with moving people based on a core need, a felt need that all humans have to go, to get their butts off their couches, and to transport themselves to where you are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and we actually see this for brands that do this really well. People will travel from other countries, believe it or not, to have in store experiences. And and okay. So let's talk practically how does this work. Okay.
Speaker 1:So let's give an example. Okay. A kitchen store retailer, pots, pans, knives, mixers, why would they want to complicate their lives in by offering some sort of of experience? Why would they wanna do that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, you know, one of the more compelling reasons for me is that that if you're not getting people if if you're just, selling your merchandise to to people, without an experiential aspect of that, you are essentially just competing against millions of other online merchants, specifically Amazon. You're not you're not Or
Speaker 1:at least a1000.
Speaker 2:A1000. Yeah. You're not ever you're not ever gonna beat the it's it's just a it's a numbers game of just how much can you get seen, which some people are pretty successful at, but but when you add in this, this, compelling reason to say, like, I'm not just buying the pots and the pans and the knives or whatever it is you're you're looking at, but I'm actually going there to use them and to make a meal. And I'm going to go with my friends and I'm going to think about that, that meal that I made with them later. That's something that Amazon or any other online merchant can never do.
Speaker 1:Well, they can never do. And so there's there's 2 layers. So there's just like, wow. I had a I I I was at the U Village, and there was a cooking store, and they invited me in to to do a balsamic vinegar tasting. Or there was a, there was a pop up, saute class taught by a great sous a sous chef
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Right, that happened to be there. So there's that serendipitous component. But what what about that kitchen store or that houseware store that effectively reaches people through social media, through their customer mailing list? And let's say they're effective D2C sellers online. They have customers all over the place.
Speaker 1:But they say, we've got the one of the head chefs from one of Ethan Stoll, who's a local restauranteur's kitchen, his, x y z location, and he's going to teach us how to, expertly poach a salmon that will blow away your guests every time.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's $65 per person, and, limited seats available. We're doing it 3 times, during this week. Book now. What's happening there is, obviously, the kitchen store's goal, or you should be able to infer, is if I help if I bring people in, they're going to buy stuff. Maybe that's the most base way they think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And maybe Ethan Stowell's motivation is, hey, this builds our reputation, and our cachet is people who are curating great food experiences. Hey, a rising tide lifts all boats here. From a consumer storefront, however, or the consumer standpoint, not the storefront, what they're doing is they're not I think this is unequivocally true. They're not saying, oh, wow, I really need to learn how to poach a salmon.
Speaker 1:That's a byproduct of something more important that they need and want. Yeah. And we've talked about this a lot. Chip, I'm gonna put you on the spot. What is the thing that that consumer wants more than to learn how to poach a salmon?
Speaker 2:They want a happy memory with their friends. They wanna they wanna get out off of their couch and do something, especially now when we we all know what it's like to be stuck on our couch, not able to go do things.
Speaker 1:And that is, in essence, what the experience economy is, sports, travel, entertainment, and dining, 1,000,000,000, if not 1,000,000,000 of dollars of money spent in those categories, the long tail or the kinda edge case of that stuff is thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of little experiences like this happening around the world where people are saying, oh, that seems like fun. They're not thinking to themselves, I need to go create a happy memory. It's just such a deeply ingrained felt need that they are completely susceptible to reasonably well crafted and curated opportunities like this. And they will pay more money for this than they'll pay for almost anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And the word susceptible kind of makes it seem like they're you're tricking them, but this is you're not tricking anyone. This is what they wanna do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. This is this is the thing. And we we know, and we'll probably say this to the point of being blue in the face and you're sick of hearing it, listener, that when happy memories are created, and I got I have to dig up this reference, it actively dispels anxiety, observable anxiety. And memory creation is not about what's consumed at the moment.
Speaker 1:It's about, obviously, what's happening between you, time, context, and the people you're with. And it turns into nostalgia over time. Mhmm. Like the time, Chip, you went to one of our customers to do a candle making workshop
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. It's an experiment. The candle's fully burned. Normally, I would just throw that away, but I still have the the vessel that I poured the candle in.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And when you look at that, are you thinking it's like, man, I'm so glad that candle provided a little bit of light, minimal warmth, and some scent? Wow. I just really wanna honor honor you, candle vessel, by never throwing your way. Or are you thinking that was a cool experience?
Speaker 1:I wanna remember that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It it holds a it's not as much of a, like, oh, this candle was a thing I bought, and now it's it's served its purpose. It's gone. It's it's, like you said, sort of this, memory of the experience that I had there.
Speaker 1:Here's the opportunity that a homeware store has. They have an opportunity to to build anticipation in a way that they can control versus someone maybe just stumbling onto their retail storefront in the You Villages or or the main streets of the world. Yeah. If if they are if they recognize that, people are looking for ways to connect with each other, how to have fun with their besties, how to add some value to their life, and whether they're thinking in their mind when they wake up in the morning, Wow, I just need an experience this week or this month, smart retailers will say, I'm going to go out and I'm going to offer a high context memory making experience. It does not have to be Disney esque.
Speaker 1:It can be something as simple as learning how to prepare Pacific Northwest Gold, a poached salmon with an expert chef, do it with a friend of mine, or just connect with some people. And what happens is that memory is created, but it's curated by that retailer and maybe their partner, the chef in the restaurant that he works for. But they curate that happy memory, and that brand is then at the center. It's the nucleus of that powerful memory they've created.
Speaker 2:And, and it, it, it drives people back even after the experiences ended to say like, well, if I'm going to buy a pot, I I have this connection that I can I can think back to to this brand? And Right. And I I think I think I'm I'm gonna go with them over some other product.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think we we have seen that products can be famous just because they're well made, they're comfortable, they are the kind of product that you wanna wear to be seen in, or the kind of pot or pan that's, wow, that's really a beautiful thing, or I want that on my shelf. But you're more susceptible to competition, as you said earlier, from the thousands of other d two c brands. And and by the way, that kitchen store that innovates like that, they will they will drink the milkshake of Williams Sonoma, who, by the way, Williams Sonoma, kinda buries it buries it on-site, but they do experiential. For brands that do a great job of creating community in which happy memories are created, they will continually steal from brands that have to invest more in expensive real estate or marketing that's not nearly as effective as the uplift that you get from memory creation.
Speaker 1:And by the way, we'll talk about this in upcoming podcasts. If you do a good job of capturing people with prebooked experiences, there's this concept of presavoring that happens. Before you actually consume the experience. Anticipation is building, and there's some really simple tools to heighten that savoring. So when the people come to experience that thing, whatever it happens to be, that experience is dramatically heightened, which leads to more FOMO creation.
Speaker 1:They share it with their friends that are there. They share it with their friends that weren't there, thus creating FOMO. Mhmm. The average order value is statistically, we've seen, higher for people that are having an experience along with the thing they're consuming.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And they be have higher customer lifetime value because they come back and then they share. Oh, you've gotta go do this amazing thing. It's it's super cool. It was wild. It was it it was it wasn't in, like, at a mall or, like, in a shopping center.
Speaker 1:It was in a concrete tilt up. There were some breweries around it. But then but and it wasn't really even beautifully designed, but there was, like it was staged really well. And, man, I'm just, like, I'm a super fan of this mattress company now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, that sounds nuts. Yeah. But you you can even do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Nobody's doing that about just the generic mattress store.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. And I don't wanna obviously, beautifully designed spaces, common areas, places to rest and relax with your family that may be surrounded by amenities like restaurants and retail. Those are great. I love those kind of experiences, but the authentic the the deep and meaningful come because we are facilitating memory creation.
Speaker 1:Okay, Chip. It's the time where we point out one of the experiences that are on the experiences app, platform. And, let's who'd you bring to the table today? Pun intended.
Speaker 2:Oh, very good. So I wanted to highlight, a shop that started using our app a couple months ago, and they stood out to me right away as a pretty unique and, different experience. They're called Wolf and Table, and it's run by, somebody in Amsterdam. And, they do home cooked meal meals, with women in their local community and, up to about 6 or 7. So very small, very intimate.
Speaker 2:Yep. There you go. And they have pre looking
Speaker 1:at it on the screen, listener, in in case you can't see this or we didn't include video with this. Very simple. I love it. It's it's Yeah. Very simple.
Speaker 1:Very nicely designed site. And Mhmm. An experience of nourishment through food and company, bringing together ambitious women who have never met around a table to eat delicious food and have meaningful conversation with each other. We call this the dining experience, and it takes places takes place in 2 different types of locations, at a restaurant or the home.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I just thought, you know, I see a lot of I'm I'm the one that that's, sees merchants come in in the in the chat support, and I, you know, there's all sorts of unique ones, but this one really stood out as, like, a really cool way to foster community in the area with just a a small number of of people. And and the idea of, like, curating the conversation and along with the meal, I found it kind of kind of a lost art of, like, the sitting down and breaking bread together, is is something that we just don't do as much anymore. It's it's very especially with, a lot of the restaurants that are, you know, sit down, get your meal, eat, get out of here Yeah. This is so we can free up that table.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is neat. And I've seen these kind of startups, before where a famous chef or someone with a strong point of view is is doing this kind of stuff. This is really great. Here's one that, it's the Entrepreneur Table by WolfenTable.
Speaker 1:And, it's a group of 5 or 6 women at most. Everyone comes solo, not knowing who else will be in attendance. You cannot purchase a chair with a friend because it allows for new connections and bonds to be created with women. They all start with an introduction. They introduce themselves and discussing questions around the table, delicious food made with love by the restaurants they partner with.
Speaker 1:That's great. Everything is prepaid. And the host here, Samantha Wolfson, is the founder of Wolf Wolf Plus Table Wolf and Table. She is, started her life in Philadelphia. She made her way to New York to follow her passion for music and landed a job doing branded sponsorship for some of the biggest music festivals in the world.
Speaker 1:That's that's really cool. Which brought her to Amsterdam. Amazing city, if you've never been. It's wonderful, where she made a switch in her career to advertising and made a bunch of campaigns for Adidas, Samsung, Airbnb, Ray Ban, Rayban, and Mont Blanc. And then she had this pivot.
Speaker 1:She wanted more than just to create campaigns to sell other people's products. She created this dinner series to connect with other aspirational women throughout the city. They these dinners happen in and out of her home, and what an admission. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thanks for bringing this to the table once again.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I have interacted with Samantha a handful of times, and, it's been it's been really cool. Learning more about her her business and helping her get up and running. And, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is this is fantastic. Highlight. Yeah. I would I would say, regardless of the reach of the experiences podcast, because this is nascent at this point, check out wolfandtable.com.
Speaker 1:That's wolf andtable.com. And if you're a woman and you find yourself in Amsterdam for any period of time, I would highly recommend checking this out. This seems just just phenomenal. And for the quality of the experience, a phenomenal, phenomenal deal. And And there's 2 types of experiences you can choose from.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and and she hosts these with some frequency. She has one on 29th, July 1st. She had one on the 22nd June. On June 15th, it looks like she has them with some frequency.
Speaker 1:So that's that's really exciting.
Speaker 2:She she said she tries to limit it to just about 2 months.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's that's wonderful. Well, thank you for bringing that, Chip, and, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. I look forward to our next one in a week. And, listener, feel free to hit us up at any time by emailing us at hello at experiencesapp app.com.
Speaker 1:That's experiences with a plural, app.com. Chip and I man that. We see that if you have thoughts about the podcast or just questions about what we're doing for small businesses and increasingly increasingly larger businesses who are looking for help through technology to bring people together with their brand as the nucleus. That is our mission. We love it, and we would love to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining me today, Chip.
Speaker 2:And if if you're doing, cool experiences that you think we should know about, go ahead and use our, experiences_app Instagram handle to, tag us on some of those experiences. We'd love to feature those, on our Instagram.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much, Chip. Thank you to anyone who's listening, and, until next time, enjoy your experiences.
