Retail’s Latest Lures Include Treadmills in the Fitting Rooms and Virtual Legos

But it hasn’t always been enough, as e-commerce continued to grow; Toys “R” Us closed the Times Square store in 2016, and filed for bankruptcy protection less than two years later. The brand’s new owners, WHP Global Inc., are planning on opening new stores later this year.

Now retailers are trying to bring shoppers back into stores after lockdowns and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic curtailed visits and accelerated the shift toward online shopping.

“The bar for customers, spending their time or money or whatever to go somewhere, just keeps being raised,” said Steve Dennis, president of SageBerry Consulting, a retail consulting firm.

Physical retail sales around the world will grow 6% this year in dollar terms after slipping 2.8% in 2020, but will again lose share to e-commerce, according to eMarketer, a research firm.

Global e-commerce sales are expected to comprise 20% of all retail this year, up from 18% in 2020 and 14% in 2019, eMarketer said.

Retailers hope their newest experiences offer consumers more than the type of novel moments that often came before.

Lego’s New York flagship store, which opened in June, is leaning on technological advances to incorporate traditional toys and augmented reality in a 20-minute experience called the Brick Lab. It lets visitors create physical Lego models out of regular toy pieces and see them come to life in a virtual world.

“We’ve seen this in recent years—a more connected play environment where kids are playing both in the digital world and the physical,” said Simone Sweeney, vice president of global retail development at Lego.

The Brick Lab currently rotates through two themes, one set in New York and another in space. As the approach comes to more stores, the themes will be tweaked to match local attractions, Ms. Sweeney said.

Dick’s Sporting Goods took a more analog approach this year with the first two locations of a new store concept called Dick’s House of Sport. The shops, in Knoxville, Tenn., and Rochester, N.Y., include rock-climbing walls for visitors to scale, adjacent turf fields that the surrounding communities can use and fitting rooms equipped with treadmills so customers can test items such as sports bras in a private space.

Other amenities include golf putting greens, running tracks, and health and wellness areas with kombucha on the menu.

Dick’s began work on House of Sport two years ago, when it started trying to make its stores more than places to quickly buy products and walk out, the company said. Experiences that customers enjoy in these two locations might end up being replicated in other stores, said Toni Roeller, senior vice president of in-store environment at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

And Mars Inc. this year has opened two new M&M’s stores, including a location in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., that allows guests to ride an elevator to “Peanut Peak,” one of the highest points inside the mall. A video screen experience in the store, called M&M’s Sweet Moves, lets visitors take a photo or record a video of themselves while moving around and add M&M imagery and music.

At both new stores, another “magic mirror” screen lets visitors see themselves rendered as one of the brand’s candy characters with emotions like happiness and sadness.

Retailers are beginning to understand that people want to spend their time in stores that make them feel special, retail experts say.

That not only draws physical foot traffic but deepens consumers’ affinity for the businesses, said Agathe Guerrier, chief strategy officer at TBWA Worldwide Inc., an advertising agency.

“A lot of brands are starting to realize the brand-building value of those physical experiences where you are truly immersed,” Ms. Guerrier said.

Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at [email protected]