Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
This week, Target is unveiling a new project in San Francisco to give consumers a hands-on smart home experience.
The Target Open House is part retail space, part lab and part meeting venue for the connected home tech community in San Francisco, according to the company.
Opening Friday, the 3,500 square-foot facility features house-like space to give customers a chance to see how multiple smart devices — such as baby monitors, lamps and coffee makers — can work together to benefit users. Rather than just showing the features of specific products, the house will provide consumers a chance to see how devices can connect and envision the impact that connectedness could have on their day-to-day lives.
“What we’re trying to do is humanize and personalize the benefits of these products, as well as show them working in concert. It’s really about relevant storytelling and creating a destination for engagement and discovery,” says Todd Waterbury, Target’s chief creative officer.
While selling a single smart device may be simple, selling a smart home is a harder task, and Target’s project allows the company to show consumers the experience rather than products on shelves, according to an article from Forbes.
The Target smart home is an experiment, but “they plan on exporting some of the best parts of Open House to their existing footprint of stores over time,” the Forbes story says.
