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A ‘home store’ that’s here to stay
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Successful businesses with a strong brand enjoy a formidable relationship with their customers, who are likely to remain loyal and continue purchasing from them even when tempted by the competition.
Reaching new customers and developing brand affinity is why local real estate developer Apcon Group has found an ingenious way to establish itself as a trusted builder throughout the Lower Mainland.
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“Our approach is to market the brand first, just like how you go to buy an iPhone. You go to the Apple store for the brand itself, and then you go to the products,” says Apcon managing director Tejvir Atwal, whose father Parminder founded the company in 2002.
In June, the developer opened a 1,400-square-foot retail outlet in the commercial space of its Hive at Willoughby Town Centre condo project in Langley. Called the Apcon Experience Centre, it’s basically a home store featuring room vignettes showcasing the builder’s construction processes and interior finishes, material samples and colour options, video loops that tell the Apcon story, plus renderings and architectural floor plans depicting other multi-family homes available for purchase.
“Typical sales centres are quite temporary. They are there to market a project with not too much information about the developer and the brand behind it. The Experience Centre is a permanent location to sell our developments, right within a building that we built,” Atwal says.
Some of the company’s projects include Park Avenue, a 32-unit townhome community in Langley, and the Harmony, Havenwood and Headwater townhome trifecta in Surrey. While the Experience Centre is the nucleus of all projects, there are display suites and sales reps at each project location. The on-site show suite for The Hive is a one-bedroom-plus-flex upstairs from the store.
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“Above all, people still like to see and touch,” Atwal says.
Hilary Stoddard, design director of The Collaborative Design Studio, was instrumental in crafting the Hive interiors and in planning the Experience Centre space. The goal was to create the biggest impact and set the stage for potential purchasers within a small footprint.
One of the coolest ideas developed by the team was to develop creative visuals accessed by scanning a QR code. Through augmented reality, visitors can virtually select different colour palettes and materials or layouts to get a picture of what their future home might look like. It’s added a whole new dimension to home design, a process she says is highly influenced by social media trends.
“People care a lot more about the design of their homes now. Ten years ago, they cared about how nice it was, but now they see all these high-end homes on Instagram, and they want some of that nice design integrated into their space. You can’t get away with cookie-cutter design anymore,” Stoddard says.
The project at hand is Hive 2, the second and final condo building of the development, which is now under construction with first possessions due spring 2025. The first building sold quickly and pre-sales of this second followed suit. Only 60 one-, one-plus-den and two-bedroom units remain, offering between 535 and 952 square feet of space. Prices start at $499,900.
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Atwal notes that customers search social media and read Google reviews even before they come to visit a sales centre. A home is a big investment for anyone, and people want to ensure their home is backed by a trusted home builder.
“We’re not just here temporarily, building show homes then shutting down and disappearing. We are right in the community. They can walk in and see us any time,” he says.
The Apcon Experience Centre is located in The Hive at 105–7920 206 Street in Langley. For information on all projects, visit apcongroup.ca.
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