Chapter 2: Appreciating and Judging the Design of Independent Retailers' Blended Concepts

The digitalisation and consequent new technologies change society and affect the life of people in general [2] – thus also retail [3]. The changes set off by the digitalisation of retail also affect customer behaviour and expectations towards seamless and integrated experiences transcending spaces of physical and digital realms [4,5]. As a result, today's shop concepts are (mostly) a combination of blended physical and virtual spaces. For example, a shop can display a garment alone as well as in styled entities and the shop is used as background on Instagram. The same Instagram picture can present an interaction link to the web shop, displaying pack shots and textual information of the same garment inclusive of the possibility of purchase and collection of the product at the physical shop. The concept of conceptual blends offers a frame to understand this blend of physical and non-physical entities [6,7], ideally integrated in omnichannel retail.