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New Sony Store in Atlanta Geared to Women

Sony Style at Lenox geared to women

By Patti Bond (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Published on: 05/26/07

Shopper Athena Binikos-Brom couldn’t quite put her finger on what drew her into the new Sony Style store at Lenox Square.

Maybe it was the blond wood motif or the rattan wallcovering. It might have been the faux living room, where gigantic plasma TVs don’t seem to mess up the decor when they’re staged above fireplaces and next to vases of bamboo.

Whatever it was, it worked. Binikos-Brom was killing time at the mall Friday before catching a flight back to Tampa when she made her first-ever impulse buy at a technology store. “

I don’t normally shop for electronics, but now here I am with a [computer] jump drive that I’ll have to carry on the plane with me,” she said. “Usually, I’ll run into Best Buy for one thing, grab it and go. Here, I actually browsed around.”

That’s exactly the idea behind Sony Style, a growing retail chain that models itself after a fashion boutique, not a gadget store. Let the big-box retailers have their wall of screaming TVs, Sony marketers say. Here, you can shop without feeling the sound effects.

“It’s not an intimidating environment. We designed it so that you can see how technology fits into your home,” said Christine Belich, vice president of visual merchandising for Sony. “The whole concept is, how do these products make your life better? Consumers don’t care so much about what’s inside the products. They just want to know what they do.”

The store is Sony Style’s first in the Southeast. Sony has opened 40 such stores across the country as part of a mission to focus on female consumers. Although the store drew a steady stream of men on opening day Friday, the space is clearly geared toward a certain demographic that tends to control the purse strings. “

Our research indicates that women are becoming more significant in consumer electronics purchases,” said Dennis Syracuse, senior vice president of Sony Style retail.

“As a result, we’ve really tried to target the store to women and families.”

A concierge desk is stationed just inside the entrance, where women can plop down purses or diaper bags, print spec sheets or just get pointed in the right direction.

Belich, who was a visual merchandiser at Neiman Marcus before joining Sony 13 years ago, said she widened the walkways in the 5,000-square-foot store for strollers, and also to create an airy feel.

She also created several vignettes that look like a  . . .

To read the rest of this article, click here: 
“Sony Style at Lenox Geared to Women” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) 

To check out the latest Sony products click here:
Sony Style Online

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May 26, 2007 - Posted by ej | Marketing to Women | Business, Shopping, Technology, Women