Hedda Schupak

It's An Experience, For Sure!
February 15, 2007

While attending the Feninjer jewelry show in Sao Paolo, Brazil, last weekend, I had the chance to take a side trip to visit Daslu, one of the stores retailing expert Paco Underhill likes to cite as a leader in experiential retailing. (See JCK’s “State of the Industry” report, September 2006).

Daslu certainly is an experience—albeit one clearly designed for the landed gentry. For starters, you can’t just walk into the store. You must drive up to the entrance or you won’t be admitted. I’m not kidding. They truly don’t allow pedestrians to enter. Whether it’s a safety thing or a snob thing, or perhaps a little of both, I’m not sure. I only know it’s the rule.

Designed to look somewhat like an Italian villa, the store is a massive palace of marble ensconced behind very high, gated walls. You can take a taxi to the entrance—they require you to come with wheels, but don’t specify that those be a chauffeur-driven Bentley—though I imagine the doorman/guard would look much more favorably on a Bentley than he did on the van our group was riding in.

Upon entering the store, the greeter hands you a map and a list of the day’s special events. There’s a cappuccino bar as well, in case you need fortification. Coats aren’t an issue in Brazil, but if they were, I’m sure yours would be taken, hung up, and probably even dry-cleaned while you shop. And you really do need the map they give you. The store is laid out like a museum, with gallery after gallery of costly goods opening one onto the other, as if they were exhibits for display rather than purchase. We weren’t allowed to take any photos—and the private tour we were supposed to have somehow got lost in translation—but we did at least get to shop.

Now, those who know me know that shopping is one of my favorite pastimes, and never in my life have I been intimidated by a mere department store. My parents love to tell the story of how, at age three, I apparently marched up to the counter at FAO Schwarz and demanded a charge card. I only vaguely remember this, or perhaps it’s an image I’ve formed in my head after hearing them tell the story countless times. But like I said, I’ve never been intimidated by a store before—even snarky salesbots at Barneys New York just annoy me, they don’t intimidate me. How ironic that the first time I ever felt like I might just be a wee bit out of my element was in a store that’s purportedly an example of brilliant retailing.

Daslu is, as Underhill describes, a place designed to put women into a “party with girlfriends” frame of mind. (There are men’s clothes there too, but I left those departments to JCK publisher Mark Smelzer and European manager Mirek Kraczkowski to examine.) And to give it the credit it deserves, it is a beautiful store.

The women’s departments are designed to look more like a dressing room than a store. Everything is hung in open closets along the walls, with plush sofas and chairs in the middle of each gallery. Accessories, including jewelry, wait in glass-topped showcase tables nearby so you can put the whole outfit together at once. It’s all meant to be very relaxed, homey, and girlfriends-dressing-for-a-party—assuming your girlfriends have lots of money and a bevy of servants to put the party together.

Men aren’t allowed in the women’s galleries. Each of the galleries is guarded by a statue of a Great Dane dog, wearing a chain collar with a discreet sign that says “men not allowed,” and accented with tiny English and American flags. I was puzzled by that. Does it mean Brazilian men are allowed in, but American men aren’t? Or were the flags simply to indicate that the warning was written in English, in case one hadn’t already figured that out?

In any case, it was easy to see why men aren’t allowed into the area. The concept of the merchandising is to allow shoppers to feel at home—as in, any time you want to try anything on, just pretend it’s your own bedroom and go ahead. Now, maybe it’s a cultural difference, but the idea of shucking down to my unmentionables in front of a lot of strangers feels a lot more like Loehmann’s than luxury. And though it’s been years since I’ve shopped in one, I vaguely recall that even Loehmann’s ditched its famous communal dressing room in favor of private stalls.

I’m not prudishly modest, but my idea of luxury is having a big plush try-on room all to myself, not trying on clothes in an upscale locker room, no matter how fancy the surroundings. Only I need to know if I’ve had too many desserts recently, or if a price tag gives me sticker shock on the scale of a kitchen remodeling job. There’s no need for my friends to know either one—let alone acquaintances I’ve just met, or even a bunch of strangers.

All told, it was a fun outing and a great experience. There’s no doubt that Daslu knows who its customers are, and creates its environment accordingly. There are definitely ideas there that jewelers can adapt, such as the plush relaxed surroundings, the cappuccino, the map, the parking valet, and the concept of having a women-only party day.

Speaking of which, when I got home and checked my email, I saw a message from a jewelry store in Atlanta called Goldwasser. Headlined, “In case it doesn’t happen the way you want it,” the email was an invitation to a special women-only Valentine’s Day shopping event—complete with goodies served all day, and a big sale on beautiful sparkly jewelry that a woman can buy for herself.

Now that’s what I call clever marketing, good girlfriend-karma, and knowing how to attract customers. And I’ll bet Goldwasser doesn’t ban pedestrians, either.

Posted by Hedda Schupak on February 15, 2007 | Comments (0)