How: Chrome-REI Shop-in-Shop

When doing a limited brand introduction like this, there are some payoffs for keeping it scrappy.

Chrome is well known as a fearless, almost gritty urban mobility brand. As part of their transition towards a direct-to-consumer (D2C) model, they partnered with the dominant US outdoor retailer, REI, to place large shop-in-shop spaces in 12 domestic locations. Rather than hand the project off to a display vendor and risk brand dilution, we decided to pull it off in-house. My team designed, prototyped, sourced, fabricated, shipped and installed all of these mini-stores, from Anchorage to San Diego, Portland to Boston. 

Ideation and Previsualization

The first step is always to define the size, materials palette and vibe of the piece. I started with Chrome's existing retail palette which is urban, industrial and almost brutally honest: they literally scrounge stuff to make displays. The key elements are ACX plywood, aluminum scaffolding tube joined by heavy galvanized "knuckles", scaffolding plank, and the nylon webbing used in their bombproof products. One thing was for sure, this was not going to look like anything else in REI --and that is the point.

With the language established, I began doing schematic iterations, eventually arriving at a good size display that would allow a high SKU count yes, but crucially, also allow top tier branding and mid tier retail marketing asset placement. 

Many designers start by hand sketching --and good on them-- but I prefer to ‘sketch' directly in CAD. Sometimes I start in 2D but I like to make the jump to full 3D as soon as possible. This allows me to work out scale and assembly issues while I explore and iterate. This is the design I landed on:

Sourcing

Once we had stakeholder buy-in on the concept, we set about sourcing materials, much of it used. We found what we needed at scaffolding yards, contractor sales and bike exchanges. We reached out to the sewing staff at Chrome to make custom branded cam straps. Finally, I contracted with one of the last “fourside” machine operators on the west coast to produce custom, non-removable hooks to hold the bags in the correct orientation.

Prototyping

We built a prototype and began testing various product assortments for fit, balance, and, most importantly, messaging opportunities.  It was only after this process was complete that we arrived at the total product assortment. As much as you would like the assortment to drive the fixture design, sometimes it’s just not practical. Also, owing to the large geographical distribution of the shop-in-shops, the assortment was tweaked for some locations, such as Alaska.  

Production

The prototype allowed us to work out the kinks in the CAD model and gain confidence in the display generally. But we had 12 of these things to build and pack for shipment, each one over 12’ long and weighing hundreds of pounds. It was a huge amount of work. We rented a small warehouse (paying for the space in large part with product), hired some help and got to work on production. We made jigs to assemble the frames and got tooling to remove sharp edges. We were our own little fixture shop.

The plywood was purchased new and CNC-routed for attachment to the frame with webbing straps. With this complete, the sheets  were sent to a flatbed printer where arial photography showing San Francisco (Chrome's home at the time) was applied. Some panels also featured a nicely typeset brand manifesto. The banners at the top of the display were not dye sublimation printed to slick SEG stretch polyester. Instead we again used a flatbed printer, this time on painter's tarps purchased at a hardware store. The more hand made it looked, the better. This was as much an awareness campaign as a shop-in-shop. Many REI customers would be seeing the brand for the first time and we wanted them to get the same vibe they would in one of the branded retail stores.  

The plywood was a full 1 inch and very heavy but truck abuse comes with the territory.  

Fulfillment 

Once we calculated the knock-down size we had crates made.  Crucially, we had them heavily branded.  This turned out to be helpful in an unexpected way.  Once the crates were shipped to the locations, store staff frequently agreed to take the crates for home projects and get a little bit of brand love in the process.  

Install

When we had everything packed up, we placed the assortment order, put mobile tool kits together and booked flights. It was time to install. 

Here’s a sampling of the final results, insitu.  

Result

Not everyone is set up to undertake a project like this and some would say it's better to leave it to a display company. But for a scrappy brand like Chrome, where honestly and authenticity are core house values, it made sense. In fact this pilot program was deemed such a success that the team expanded it to 75 doors, albeit with a smaller display.