NEW YORK — Shiseido has revamped its selling space at Macy’s Herald Square flagship with the goal of becoming the top skin care brand at the store.
The redesigned area, which features more open space, brighter lighting and computers to analyze skin and compile a customer registry, is intended to attract new people to Shiseido, according to James Perry, the company’s vice president of sales.
“We wanted to open things up, have the products easier to get to and facilitate interaction with the products,” he said. “We also knew we had to speed up our services — we were somewhat slow before.”
The new space has been open for a “dry run” for the past two weeks, said Perry, who noted that in that time, Shiseido has registered 800 new customers.
The counter officially opened Monday, he added, and sales have been 20 percent ahead of last year’s figures so far this week.
“We have a goal for ’95 of reaching $3 million in sales,” Perry said. The company is reportedly projected to do near $2.5 million this year.
Perry noted that the sales plan could place Shiseido, which does 65 percent of its sales in treatment, at the top of the Herald Square store’s skin care rankings.
“We’re looking for a nice jump. Right now we’re number four in this store,” he said.
The redesign was accomplished using the same 600-square-foot space Shiseido previously occupied in the southwest corner of Macy’s cosmetics floor. While the location and size are the same, the barriers between beauty consultants and consumers have been removed, with most of the products placed in accessible, open-sell units.
Counters have been installed on the side to accommodate facials and makeovers.
“This is the prototype for our future,” said Yuji Kishida, president of Shiseido, adding that similar installations are planned for the Macy’s units in Paramus, N.J. and San Francisco.
“This design is much more customer-friendly than what they had before,” said Rita Burke, senior vice president at Macy’s East. “We’re excited about it. We think it will draw a lot of new people.”