Canada’s first shopping apartment offers real-life retail in a tiny downtown Toronto condo
Financial Post
Hollie Shaw
15 July 2015
So-called “experiential retail” — offering improved service and
in-store pleasantries such as free tea and cookies — is on the rise.
But Toronto interior designer Nike Onile has taken experiential retail
to a whole new level with Canada’s first shopping apartment, housed
inside a tiny downtown condo where people can purchase au courant décor.
In keeping with the concept, people can buy more than just furniture
and throw pillows at The Apt by 800 Sq. Ft.: Literally everything is
for sale, from the paintings on the walls to the kitchen’s glassware
and cutting boards, the beauty products and towels in the bathroom, the
clothes in the bedroom closet, and the colourful chocolates and cakes
on the kitchen counter.
It’s a creative way, Onile said, of solving many consumers’ execution
blindness: They have trouble visualizing products inside a different
space.
“In a regular shop, things are often kind of placed in multiples, and
you can’t really get any sense of how it would look in a home,” Onile,
31, said in a recent showing of her retail condo. “That’s why staging
(the practice of adding décor and home furnishings to houses that are
for sale) happened. People walk into an empty home and think, ‘Oh, I
don’t know if this would work.’ Then you put furniture in it, and
people say ‘Oh yes, I could totally live here.’ It’s the same kind of
concept, it’s coming into a space where you can buy everything that you
love.”
Onile didn’t intend to open her business inside an apartment, but was
forced to get creative when she looked at the high costs of urban
retail real estate. Fortunately, Toronto’s condo housing boom afforded
her a natural downtown space to carry the retail goods sold by her
design company, 800 Sq. Ft., when she was looking for a space to
showcase the goods sold on her website.
“I wanted to open up a furniture shop and I knew it had to be in the
middle of the city,” said Onile, whose firm specializes in design for
small spaces like condominiums. “This was the solution for that.”
The Apt. by 800 Sq. Ft. operates by appointment only, and hosts three
to four shopping parties a month for customers to browse and buy items
such as the groovy Renwil pendant light ($650) or a $49 Pamuk & Co.
Turkish cotton towel. Because shopping is done only after making an
appointment at 800SqFt.com, Onile does not have to operate her 500-square-foot business within a zoned retail space.
(For the rest of the article, click on the link above.
On her website Onile lists the times for her shopping parties.
ALL DAY SHOPPING PARTY!
REGISTER FOR EXCLUSIVE DETAILS AND AN INSIDER INVITATION BY LETTING US KNOW WHICH ONE YOU WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND!
JULY
24
JULY 25
12 PM – 2 P
12 PM – 2 PM
5 PM – 7
PM
5 PM – 7 PM
7 PM – 9
PM
7 PM – 9 PM
Wait, there's more:
Besides shopping
The Apt will also be having regular shopping parties, artist showcases,
dinners and can even be rented out for a meeting, or a private party.
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