While researching for our 4.0 trend presentation the it fits! team noticed that big box retailers are feeling the heat as their sales decline while small scale, personal shops using traditional methods have forced. Whether online or in-store, these new businesses offer a more personal, engaging experience helping customers accentuate their unique styles and tastes, cultivating a more personalized and meaningful relationship with their products and brands.
This changing retail environment also activates bigger brands to smarten up their game and create new small scale business models for a more personal experience. For example this new Kiehl’s barber shop in Greece, Athens offering the “Ultimate Shaving Experience.”
Old-school entrepreneur Panagiotis Grigoriou wanted to take you back a few decades, dressed in a flawless vintage-inspired outfit and a wide smile, Grigoriou teamed up with Kiehl’s Facial Fuel Collection, drawing inspiration from his own childhood. Born in Egypt, the conservative local society would never tolerate overgrown hair, so barber shop visits became a monthly ritual.
Unable to come to terms with the changing fashions, barbers, slowly became a thing of the past. ‘Barbers essentially started losing their clientele to the more tolerant, commercial hair salons,’ explains Grigoriou. ‘A few steps could have easily turned barbershops into a superior grooming experience, but they just couldn’t take their establishments to the next level. Memories of barbershops’ past made him decided to take things into his own hands.
The Kiehl’s barber shop featuring hand-picked vintage equipment, the best coffee machine in town and the humble expertise of an expert Egyptian barber. Another example on how traditional craftsmanship, engagement and old values are the beginning of a newer, better working system. 8
photo © Costas Voyatzis for Yatzer.com
