That's Retail-tainment!

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

A fact of modern American life: shopping for cosmetics, like wading through certain Don DeLillo novels or trying to make sense of the plotlines for Melrose Place, is not an easy undertaking. Step onto the mazelike cosmetics floor of almost any department store and you are likely to be assaulted by salesclerks--some spritz-happy, some too eager to confront you about your shiny forehead. Chances are the beauty product you're looking for is under glass, off limits to mere customers. According to at least one market-research survey on the way cosmetics are presented and pitched in stores, the entire process "inhibits friendliness."

A friendly environment is just what you get at Sephora, the successful French cosmetics chain that opened its first U.S. store in New York City this summer and plans to have 50 stores around the U.S. by the end of 1999. Thousands of square feet in size, Sephora stores are chicly decorated, easy-to-navigate bazaars for the sale of scores of brands of makeup and fragrance. The music is low, the lighting is flattering and the merchandise, much of which is helpfully arranged by category rather than brand, is out for the touching and taking. Salesclerks leave you alone unless you need them; and if you'd prefer to avoid the staff altogether, touch-activated video monitors can guide you through product selection. Sephora's ambition, says the company's marketing vice president Sherry Baker, is to create an experience that is exciting--"visually, sensually, spiritually, intellectually."

While this might sound like a lofty goal for an outfit in the business of selling things like eye-makeup remover, it is one that more and more merchants are aiming to achieve. From department stores to specialty chains to boutiques, retailers are deciding that the way to get customers into the stores is to make the shopping environment less forbidding, more theatrical and more fun. Some call it "retail-tainment" and hope it will counter the rising threat from Internet shopping sites, low-priced outlet malls and the feeling among time-pressed shoppers that fighting your way through the crowds (particularly during the busy holiday season) is no fun at all.

The idea that the store can be a destination, a pleasant rather than an off-putting experience, has been popularized by retailers such as Barnes & Noble, which added lounge chairs and coffee bars, turning the bookstore into a relaxed, meet-and-greet emporium. Children's stores entice their young clientele with play areas and performances, while athletic retailers like Oshman's and the Sports Authority woo customers with batting cages, on-site golf pros and roller hockey games in the parking lot. Veer beyond the All-Clad pots offered at Williams-Sonoma and you might just stumble upon a cooking class. Walk into an Old Navy clothing store and you're apt to find clerks handing out tote bags for carrying merchandise, a soda fountain, and a billboard announcing the store's au courant motto: SHOPPING IS FUN AGAIN.

In some ways, all this is merely a return to that quaint old concept: customer service. Saunter into Bloomingdale's in New York City and you are likely to be greeted by one or more store executives, who as a result of the store's new Ambassador Program have to spend at least two hours a week welcoming customers. Buy merchandise worth more than $100 during any weekend this holiday season at Banana Republic's main branch in San Francisco and the store will provide you with a lift home. Want to avoid the hassle of Christmas-gift buying altogether? Seattle-based Nordstrom's will give you a personal shopper, who will make selections while you sit in comfort and watch TV.

Nancy Stone, a Virginia-based retail consultant, notes that such efforts at customer service fell into disuse back in the 1980s, when commercial real estate prices soared and retailers became obsessed with packing more merchandise into stores. Smart retailers now aim to "give the customer a feeling of familiarity, keep her in the store, make her linger," says Stone. Even small amenities like a coffee bar, says Martin Pegler, a professor of merchandising at Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology, can make customers feel more comfortable in a store. "It's not giggles and bubblegum and balloons," says Pegler. "It's convenience. People are longing for small pleasures in shopping."

They're also longing for the exotic and exciting. Debbie Sansevero, head of Desan Productions, a firm aiding shops in product presentation, believes that shoppers have been numbed by the homogeneity of so much merchandise in stores today. "You look at Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel, and the stuff in these stores is all the same," she says. "Shops have to have some way of distinguishing themselves to the customer."

While specialty stores have taken the lead in making shopping more of an adventure, the old-line department stores are getting the idea too. A $10 million overhaul under way at Marshall Field's Chicago flagship will result in the addition of a mini-museum paying homage to the city and detailing the store's long history. Among the other new features: a visitor's center, where a concierge will arrange theater tickets for shoppers, and a business center, where customers can send faxes, catch up with CNN or get their shoes shined.

In part a response to the user-friendly Sephora, Bergdorf Goodman, the posh Manhattan department store, is nearly tripling the size of its cosmetics floor and adding a multitude of new services, including free makeovers and informal seminars on anti-aging treatments. The cosmetics floors at Bloomingdale's stores in Manhattan and Century City, Calif., have recently finished renovations to make their products more accessible to customers and the sales turf easier to navigate.

Indeed, the goal of making stores inviting and confusion free has been reflected in store design. The notion of austere, open space--all the rage in chic urban boutiques during the '80s and early '90s--is now coming to an end, in the opinion of Paul Bennett, a retail architect who has designed shops for DKNY and Anne Klein. "Now the design has to be more welcoming, more intimate," he says. Bennett, who is working on shops for Calvin Klein's CK division, has helped popularize the concept of "zoning"--the creation of a series of small spaces within a store, which provide the customer with the homey sense of roaming from room to room. "If I do a good job," says Bennett, "the customer will have an emotional connection to the store."

For emotional connection, however, you'd have to work hard to top Betsy Berman, a marketing consultant. She and husband Dennis Sinclair got married two years ago at the Chicago branch of Crate & Barrel. The bridal procession came up the escalator, and vows were exchanged amid the candlesticks and crockery. Which might be the ultimate example of in-store entertainment--at least until someone decides to give birth at a Baby Gap.

--With reporting by Deborah Fowler/Atlanta, Laird Harrison/Oakland, Elizabeth Rudulph/New York and Maggie Sieger/Chicago

With reporting by Deborah Fowler/Atlanta, Laird Harrison/Oakland, Elizabeth Rudulph/New York and Maggie Sieger/Chicago