December 20, 2021 I Operations
Roland Reveals ‘Roland Store’ Retail Experience
The Roland Store in Glasgow, Scotland's drums section.
Roland is proud to announce an expanded Roland Store experience at select retailers in the U.S. and globally. Roland developed a new technology for the stores, branded Audience Specific Experience ASX, that controls the lighting, video and audio in the spaces and can be altered by the press of a button to match the environment to the taste of individual customers. Roland debuted the technology in 2020 and currently operates 10 of the new store formats globally, with expansion into new markets planned for 2022.
As retailers continue to compete with e-commerce sites, Roland said in a statement this experience will help them continue to build relationships with consumers on the store floor. The new Roland store-in-stores offer full-time Roland product experts, hands-on demonstrations, and access to the full Roland and Boss catalog of products. They also showcase how Roland and Boss products can help consumers learn about, create and perform music.
“Retailers are continuing to seek out new ways to engage with their customers as they readjust to in-store shopping this holiday season,” said Corin Birchall, Roland global retail operations manager. “With Roland’s Audience Specific Experience ASX, each person who walks into the Roland Stores can enjoy music, lighting, and screen content matched to their own needs. We’re excited to be able to expand this upgraded retail experience to more retailers globally so that both consumers and the sales teams that rely on them can enjoy it.”
Roland opened its first retail store-in-store in 2001 in the U.K., later expanding across Europe and Japan, with the aim of giving customers the very best physical experience, product knowledge, and post-sales support. Since 2020, Roland has enhanced it with new technology, access to the full range of products from Roland and Boss, the full BPM Supreme music library to test DJ controllers, free one-on-one product training with a Roland product specialist, and more. According to the company, retailers that open Roland Stores typically double their sales of Roland and Boss products, with many also experiencing significant lifts in categories like piano, synth, and drums, as a whole.
“Even during the pandemic, the Roland Store and the amazing staff at Roland helped grow our business in sales, marketing, brand identity and value,” said Alan Rosen, owner of Bananas At Large in Northern California. “We have seen a tremendous turn in all Roland products and especially saw great increases in models we were not stocking previously or felt did not fit our business model at the time. We are truly grateful to Roland for the honor and privilege of being the flagship Roland Store.”
Currently, Roland Stores have opened in multiple cities in the United States, Montreal, Beijing, Sydney, São Paulo and Glasgow, Scotland. Roland has plans to expand to other metropolitan areas at the heart of regional music making in the future.
