In my last post, I shared some insight into the changing men’s market and the basic differences between female shoppers and male shoppers. So now, how does Holt Renfrew’s first stand-alone men’s store shape up relative to the male shopper?
Holt Renfrew has already recognized the unique state of mind of male shoppers, by giving them a separate experience at their flagship along with their own dedicated entrance. However, this new men’s-only store goes further to reach the male shopper on his terms.
Why the stand-alone Holt Renfrew Men works:
The Synergy of Location
Synergy happens when similar retailers locate themselves adjacent to each other. With the addition of Holt Renfrew Men in the Bloor St. mix, strategically located adjacent to Harry Rosen and across the street from Hugo Boss and Porsche, an upscale menswear shopping destination has been created. Together, the grouping of stores, leverage the male shopper’s planned buying trips and makes his mission easier to complete. This is The Principle of Minimum Differentiation (Hotelling’s Law) at work in the realm of fashion retail – where similar retailers benefit from geographic proximity.
Ease of Navigation
Men want to get their shopping done quickly and with expediency. There’s a budget on their time commitment and it may seem like a cliché, but men are less willing to ask for directions. Holt Renfrew has honoured these needs, by making the store layout immediately understandable and easy to navigate. The general interior architecture and floor openings, as well as the stair and escalator placement have remained the same as when Roots occupied the site. But it works. There are appealing open sight lines throughout the space. Helpful directional and brand signage, clearly defined walkways and shallow department areas lend an air of quiet efficiency and makes it a breeze to navigate and shop.
The Appeal of Status
Status is a man’s Achilles heel. Because women have four times as many neurons connecting the left and right sides of the brains, they process information though both rational and emotional filters, whereas men typically process information though a rational filter (for more detail checkout The Buying Brain by Dr. A. K. Pradeep). However, that doesn’t make male shoppers immune to emotion, especially when it relates to status. Holt Renfrew Men has cleverly parked a brand new Ferrari in the prime space, just inside their entrance (also visible from the approaching sidewalk). With planned re-staging every few months the space will highlight the most enticing and desirable boys’ toys or ultimate status items.
Helpful & Discreet Customer Service
Male shoppers are typically not comfortable with asking for assistance. Aside from the younger generation Y, they are also not entirely comfortable shopping. This is where helpful but not too pushy staff can make all the difference in both assisting the male shopper and making him feel at home. At Holt Renfrew Men, the staff is friendly, helpful and clearly excited about their new location – enough so to happily engage in conversation about the store and its features. They are ready to assist without being pushy. And the glass-walled tailor shop for on-site alterations, only adds to the sense of being adeptly taken care of.
The Right Manly Touches
A menswear store needs to feel manly without being a cliché. Holt Renfrew Men accomplishes that through the subtle layering of texture, pattern and colour that mimics menswear itself. The design is of the quality that one would expect of Holt Renfrew– it is pure sophistication, but in a manly way. Fixtures and furnishings are solid. Materials are textural. And in the shoe department, the chairs are generously wide and comfortable rather than the communal benches often found in women’s shoe departments, giving male shoppers their personal space and a sense of importance.
With so many elements in place to make Holt Renfrew Men a success with male shoppers, it is not without its drawbacks. Where the weakness lies is in the store’s inability to fully address all of their male shoppers’ needs or leverage the spontaneity of women shoppers (just as men are planned shoppers, women are spontaneous shoppers). With menswear split between this stand-alone store and the flagship store, neither the needs of male shoppers or women shoppers are fully served. Men have not been given the ultimate convenience of being able to complete a season’s worth of shopping in one place nor can Holt Renfrew benefit from suggestive selling, by pairing a wider selection of brands together in displays.
One also cannot overlook the importance of the female shopper, who remains a major purchaser of menswear. Holt Renfrew is missing out on opportunistically exposing female shoppers to menswear and leveraging their spontaneous purchasing behaviour.
However, the male shopper is the new retail frontier; not only are the buying habits of male shoppers changing but the coming generations of men are more fashion conscious and savvy shoppers than ever before. Any shortcomings of this stand-alone venture may well be temporary!
