Samsung's vision for the future of retail is a store that doesn't try to sell you anything — take a look inside

samsung 837 exterior

Samsung 837 is the company's flagship store in New York City.
The space is designed to let visitors try out Samsung products.
The store's employees won't encourage guests to buy anything, and the store has limited inventory on site.
Many of the store's installations are designed to be shared on social media.

Samsung 837 has been called a store that doesn't sell anything, but that's not quite true.

It's true that the New York City store's employees won't push guests to buy any Samsung products, and the space has only a small amount of inventory on site, but the store is selling something else: the idea that Samsung will make shoppers happier than any other tech company.

Shoppers can lounge in one of the living room displays pumped with holiday-themed scents (we noticed cinnamon during our visit) and consider how nice that 60-inch flat-screen TV would look in their home. Or, they can come to a free Luke Bryan concert held in the store and send Snapchats to all of their jealous friends.

Take a look around:

"We wanted this space to be the truest expression of the Samsung brand," Zach Overton, Samsung's vice president of customer experience and the general manager of 837, said in an interview with Business Insider.

Overton was hired to run the store in November 2015, three months before it opened, after working as the COO of the HIV/AIDS charity (RED). While the building had been chosen and the interior space built, Overton had to decide what to put in the store and how it would operate. From the beginning, he knew that he didn't want employees to drone on about Samsung products; he wanted visitors to experience them firsthand.

While the store's installations change each season, its current iteration includes two stationary VR rides that tilt and shake in response to the visuals in a headset, a glass DJ booth that plays top-40 hits, a variety of holiday-themed selfie stations, and tables full of laptops, phones, and tablets.

"We moved away from talking at people about products, features, and tech specs and things like that, into really engaging in a two-way dialogue with them about how our technology can power the things that they love to do," Overton said.

Employees won't try to sell visitors any of the products they use, but if the space works the way Samsung hopes, they won't need to.

Upon entering the store, guests have the option to borrow a Galaxy loaded with an app that's part map, part product guide, and part cash register. As they walk through the space, the app identifies the nearest installation and gives them the option to learn more about the relevant products or buy them directly through the app. And if they'd like, they can take pictures that they can later email to themselves.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider