Harman’s First U.S. Retail Store Pushing Do-It-Yourself Demos, Automated Sales Features

Harman opened its first U.S. company store, a 9,000-square-foot showroom, interactive demo space and retail shop in a former Talbot’s location roughly a block from Sony’s Sony Wonder Technology Lab and PlayStation Lounge. At a private event at the store Thursday night, Sean Kapoor, Harman vice president-brand marketing, told us the store will open to the public Nov. 22 and be Harman’s “flagship” store, if not its first. Harman operates stores in Shanghai, Seoul and Dubai, and a Moscow store is due to open in February, followed by a store in New Delhi, Kapoor said. Beyond that, Harman will continue to look at options, he said, and “maybe a couple more in the U.S.” The midtown Manhattan store has a seven-year lease and will be open daily from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., he said.

Competitors including Bang & Olufsen, Sony and Bose have years on Harman in the company-branded retail space. Kapoor said the decision to open the first U.S. store now is part of its “omni-channel marketing strategy.” Harman has been making sure it has the “right products and right experience” for consumers, Kapoor said. He cited design and engineering awards Harman brands have won recently and said new websites will launch Monday for the JBL and Harman Kardon brands. Harman is “bringing everything strategically together piece by piece,” he said.

Harman’s plan for the New York store is to demonstrate all segments of its brands covering the home, portable, car and pro audio segments. The store will have a dedicated area for car after-market products but none of its factory car systems, since each car system is custom-tuned to a particular vehicle, Kapoor said. At the event, Harman was demonstrating sound systems outside the store in an SRT Viper, a Ferrari and Mercedes SL500.

The store will have a professional audio area with a mixing console that Harman will make available to the company’s production team customers in New York and it will “even encourage musicians to come in and use the facilities,” Kapoor said. The stage area features JBL professional speakers and lighting from Martin Professional, a Danish company that Harman acquired earlier this year. The store’s lower level will include a high-end home theater and “proper two-channel listening room” where consumers can listen to products, Kapoor said. Any installation services arising out of a sale at the store will be referred to “partner installers,” he said.

While Harman’s JBL, Harman Kardon, AKG, Mark Levinson, Infinity, Lexicon and Revel brands will be demoed in store, cross-brand bundling isn’t currently part of the strategy, Kapoor said. “We're trying to stay holistic to brands,” he said, but the store will hold offers and promotions “from time to time.” Social media is “core” to the store’s purpose to further the Harman name, and will be used for promotions and sweepstakes, Kapoor said. Harman is currently holding a promotion for a Maroon 5 concert in New York that’s tied to the Super Bowl in February, he said.

Hands-on activity spaces are key to the Harman store concept. “We want consumers to get to know our brands intimately, not just through simple advertising or media,” Kapoor said. The typical retail store today has headphones “sitting in a box” or there’s a point-of-sale kiosk “with some lame music in it,” he said. “We wanted to create an experience and do something that’s different.” For the launch party, only the headphone demo section was built to accommodate a guest list of 300, but additional sections will be built over the next week for soundbars, portable music systems and receivers, Kapoor said. The “loose fixtures” will be movable “so we can do merchandising in a flexible way,” he said. An enclosed sound cube offers a place for customers to do A-B comparisons with competitive products. The room had Beats headphones and a sound system Thursday.

The “sound spider” structure at the store entrance has nine embedded touch-screens on a table with each positioned beneath a set of headphones. From the demo stations, customers can select tracks by tapping on cover art, get more information about Harman and can call up a “sound concierge,” an automated program that recommends products based on certain criteria. Someone can specify, for instance, that she’s looking to spend $50 on headphones for running. The concierge will recommend a product and direct customers to the section in the store where they can find the item. That’s a nod to the shopping environment today where “nobody wants to talk to anybody anymore,” Kapoor said. Employee count for the store is 25, including a management team of three. At any given time, 12-15 people will be available to assist customers, he said.