Retail Innovation: Smart Spot
Context
In 2016, Smart Home tech was making a lot of headlines, but still mystified many Lowe’s customers. The CXD team partnered with the business to develop delightful, informative shopping experiences whether in-store or online.
Why?
Smart home was seen as a key play to attract new customers to Lowe’s.
Discover
We applied existing knowledge and expertise to fuel an accelerated design process.
Learn more about the Xcelerator Design Sprint Workshop I developed and facilitated for Lowe’s here.
Key insights
- Customers research online for > 2 months before they buy.
- Customers are frustrated by lack of an easy way to assess and compare.
- Difficult to find products spread in many locations in the Lowe’s store.
- Lack a hands-on experience and the ability to go deeper while in the store or in the aisle.
Design principles
“Don’t make me work to find it.”
“Help me get me over the fear.”
“Show me how it makes my life easier.”
How might we…
- Call attention to it.
- Bring it out of hiding.
- Group it together.
How might we…
- Convey bite size chunks.
- Speak human not tech.
- Make it hands-on
How might we…
- Inspire with solutions.
- Curate collections.
- Enable choice.
The plan
Three distinct physical designs supported by an online companion.
Dedicated 400 square feet experience where customers can interact with and explore a curated selection of 40+ smart products located at the customer drop zone. Developed in partnership with b8ta where specially trained associates are staffed during peak hours.
Dedicated 100 square feet experience featuring solution-driven and story based (i.e. Holiday Gifting) smart products in the main-on-main drive aisle.
SmartSpot signage highlighting smart products across all product categories providing incremental visibility inline.
Enhanced category Smart Home landing page and a dedicated microsite highlighting customer reviews, compatibility, rich content, and customer-centric project solutions.
Associate resources
We created guides and training materials to help Red Vests understand our experiment while giving them resources and information that customers need.
The whole enchilada
Almost a year of work in 3 minutes…
Performance
SmartSpot by b8ta
For the week ending 12/23, SmartSpot by b8ta stores outperformed all other non-SmartSpot stores across featured products:
- iLuv Speaker 11X
- Nest Thermostat 7X
- Nest Cam 16X (Outdoor Cam 3X)
- Ring Stick Up 8X
- Toucan 12X
- Withings 8X
- Honeywell Lyric 5X
SmartSpot by Lowe’s
With no staffing, limited product assortment (14 vs. 40) and late launch of early December, seeing variable performance, achieving weekly revenue above break even during some weeks but not consistently performing.
Outcomes
Partner approach
While the b8ta experience was cutting edge and drove sales, the numbers simply didn’t work at scale and their test was concluded.
Lowe’s approach
A nice environment that didn’t move the needle while occupying prime drive aisle real-estate, especially without the trained associates that b8ta provided.
Signage Only
You go to what you know and signage carries the day, even to this day. Smart home products are better clustered in the appropriate parts of the store, but educating the customer is not a prime focus – it was to hard to do in the moment, and we couldn’t drive people online after their store visit.
lowes.com/smartspot
Did not convert enough customers directly, and we had no way to measure if a store trip led to a website visit.
Takeaways
The scale of big-box retail makes deploying ANY solution difficult, even before cost. Planning and contingency planning is essential.
Change management and working with the store associates is critical – they aren’t bystanders to your experiment. The presence of b8ta employees rattled and upset some Red Vests.
Great experiences that can’t be measured will likely not make it across the finish line.
Description
Lowe's
Smart Spot: Revolutionizing Smart Home Shopping at Lowe's
This case study explores how Lowe's made smart home technology accessible to mainstream customers in 2016. Facing an aging customer base and complex products, the team developed Smart Spot - combining interactive showrooms, strategic signage, and digital experiences.
The solution included a 400-square-foot interactive experience with trained associates, solution-focused displays, and store-wide signage. Despite impressive results (some products saw 7-16x sales increases), the project revealed key insights about scaling retail innovation, including the importance of associate buy-in and the challenge of measuring experiential retail impact in big-box environments.