Competition for customers is fierce. Businesses have to offer high quality products that fulfill a need in customers’ lives while providing that product at the highest level of service from knowledgeable employees.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, it used to be about bringing the customers in, getting them their product and getting them through the checkout lanes. With changes in technology and the trend toward more and more online purchases, brick-and-mortar stores are having to adapt. Rather than being solely a place to purchase a product, they’re becoming a place to engage with the brand, other customers, other products and more. Brands are no longer just selling products and services – they’re selling an experience.

In-store services beyond sales

Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., recently began rolling out “experience shops” in its stores. These “shops” are dedicated areas of the retail store designed to display particular products. Many stores have Apple, Sony and Samsung “shops” throughout their stores. Visit nearly any Best Buy store today and you’ll find a Samsung area where highly trained employees can walk you through the array of Samsung’s latest technology, highlight different features of the products and help you determine which product is right for you.

In fall of 2014, Best Buy launched their Camera Experience Shops. These sections of the store include a vast assortment of cameras—including many high-end products—for customers to pick up and test. Staff in these “shops” have received specialized training from Canon, Nikon and Sony to ensure a full-service experience for customers. To ensure customers get the most out of their products, Best Buy even offers classes and training at their stores with Camera Experience Shops.

Best Buy isn’t the first store to offer in-store training and classes. Apple stores offer one year of classes at their stores, and the athletic apparel store Lululemon offers yoga classes at some locations.

Redefining in-store experience

Other stores are taking it beyond an enhanced product experience after a purchase. Instead, they’re looking for ways to keep you in the store for reasons beyond retail.

In an interview with Crain’s, Neil Stern, a senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a Chicago-based retail consultancy, said that brands are changing the way they view their brick-and-mortar locations. “These newer brands are taking a different view toward what a physical store does and aren’t just looking at them as places for commerce,” said Stern. “These brands want to be the place you hang out.”

To get customers to stay awhile, brands are coming up with new activities for their followers to do. While Best Buy and others offer classes or training to learn how to use your recently purchased items, other stores, like watchmaker Shinola, will offer activities that seem to have no correlation to their products at all. In the article from Crain’s, Shinola marketing director Bridget Russo said their store in Chicago will host up to five events a month, some of which include beer tastings. In some of their Los Angeles and New York stores, they’ve incorporated nearby businesses into their events, such as inviting local florists to lead wreath-decorating parties. “We really aim to make them more than just stores,” Russo said. “We like to open the store up to other partners.”

Russo said the events help bring in more potential customers and ultimately increase sales. Stern said, “These brands are trying to take their place and ingratiate themselves into the community in a smart way at a fairly low cost.”

PSFK, an American media company that follows and reports trends, calls this a “Community Cornerstone.” This concept in retail is where stores set aside space within their stores to offer complementary services that “go beyond their core product offerings,” the company said. Experts at PSFK say this new direction sees stores as marketplaces for relationships rather than products alone. Creating these experiences inside their stores and inviting their customers to participate allows brands to create engaging moments that customers will come back for.

The article from PSFK featured two stores that are doing just that: Urban Outfitters and Club Monaco – two fashion brands whose flagship stores in Manhattan come complete with amenities like cafes, hair salons, bike repair shops, photography booths, book stores and more. Stores become “lifestyle centers” rather than just clothing retailers. These meaningful experiences are critical to overcoming the ease and convenience of purchasing products online.

Some stores, like U.S. discount retailer Target, have been creating mini community within their stores for years, but have been increasing the sophistication of those communities. Not only can you buy all of your household products, groceries and clothing, but you can use the store’s free wireless internet in order to more easily access their online coupon app, Cartwheel. And if you need a break from shopping, you can visit one of the delis or high-end coffee shops in their stores. If you aren’t feeling well, you can stop by their walk-in pharmacies. And if your vision has been bothering you, setup an eye exam at their optical retail shops while you’re at it.

Throwing out the “norm” for the “new”

While some brands are trying to enhance their customers’ experiences by adding new components to their stores, some businesses are looking to completely overhaul what is considered the expectation of in-store experiences. MiniLuxe, a luxury nail salon with typical services like manicures and pedicures, decided to revamp the typical in-store experience most customers had come to expect at nail salons. An article from the New York Times documented their changes. First, they tackled in-salon hygiene. MiniLuxe decided to mimic practices from the medical industry by choosing single-use tools when they could, and using in-house clean labs with ultrasonic debris removes and hospital-grade autoclave sterilizers for everything else. Many individuals who have been to regular nail salons know the potential germ bed that the jets in foot tubs can be. MiniLuxe doesn’t use jets in their foot tubs, alleviating that customer concern entirely.

MiniLuxe knew that the salon itself was only one piece to the experience puzzle. To create a better experience than most nail salons, MiniLuxe wanted to enhance the experience for individuals who worked there. To do that, MiniLuxe chose to provide health insurance, paid time off, profit-sharing and a company 401(k) to its roughly 200 full- and part-time employees. Mats Lederhausen, one of MiniLuxe’s owners/investors, said, “You can’t create affinity for consumers if you don’t create affinity for employees.”

When customers aren’t at a MiniLuxe location, they can use the brand’s online presence to schedule appointments 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore allowing themselves to be a part of customers’ lives even when customers aren’t in-store.

In order to succeed in today’s business environment, brands have to sell more than just products and services—they have to sell an experience. Companies need to find ways for their brick-and-mortar locations to be an engaging space for their customers, whether customers are engaging with products, other customers or the brand itself through social media channels. Stores that offer the typical retail experience may find it harder and harder to convince customers to come inside.