Category: assortment structure planning
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Fat Face Blossoms: The Brand Next Door becomes a thing of Beauty
As brands are born and breathe into life, they experience the growing pains that often make them appear unattractive and awkward in public, a sum of evolving parts learning to live together, to be a thing of beauty and harmony. There are always traits to admire, details to delight but the sum of the parts…
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Ale House Rocks: Hip-hopping impulse shopping
Famous for its half-in half-out life-size plastic cows, catching by surprise the passer-by, herding them helplessly into the green pastures of impulse grazing, the power of Ale-Hop lays in its meticulously constructed category assortment. No hollow gesture, Ale-Hop literally bursts with colour and creativity. Never have so many of so few made such a…
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The Retail Relay: “Running a 3-legged race, in a 4 leg event?”
“A chain is as strong as its weakest link” could never be more appropriate than the chain of events that transforms a retail strategy into a store full of tangible, buyable products. “And what the customer sees and responds to is unfortunately the result of the weakest link, not the strongest one!” To achieve…
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Spanish Impresario: Stradivarius’ Virtuoso Performance
Stradivarius makes its first public performance in the biggest venue in town, Westfield Stratford, as the Inditex family sends forth another member making “bridgeheads” and “inroads” into the UK mainland. As with all consummate professionals Stradivarius can’t fail to impress and delight its audience as it pitches the high notes of current fashion, with…
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Claiming the Wild Westfield: New Territories for TKMaxx
The TKMaxx expansion railroad shows no sign of slowing, let alone hitting the buffers, as its combination of fashion brands, low prices and dynamic assortment changes finds wider appeal and acceptance within the style sensitive streets of London, and now the expansive plains and diverse demographics of Westfield Stratford. Whilst the unpredictability of the…
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Seasonal Selfridges: Winter in a Tourist Wonderland
Christmas comes but once a year, and so do tourists. So, with this in mind, and with the usual indomitable Selfridge’s spirit, the Winter Wonderland has already arrived in anticipation of those seasonal September sales. Globetrotters in search of gifts and glitter are falling over themselves heading for the fourth floor to immerse themselves…
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Defining Desigual: Putting a Price on Personality
Always the unashamed showcase for unique creativity and distinct colour combinations and designs, Desigual sometimes felt like the awkward overdressed guest at the party that was the hugely successful Spanish high street. Against the mass market commercial appeal of its rivals, their fast fashion footwork, and intelligent interpretations of the catwalk, Desigual had many admirers,…
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Home Successaries: Zara puts its House in Order
The attraction of Zara Home could never be denied for the fashion conscious householder with a desire to decorate their rooms with a stylish mix of distinctive design and a spectrum of colour basics. In line with Inditex’s clothing concepts, Zara home combined eye catching image makers with a core assortment of products appropriate for…
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Underground Connection: A New World in Old Street
In an area of London not short of innovation, and with retail delights and surprises bursting out of every industrial alley way and distressed doorway, the newest players are moving underground, taking residence amongst the newsagents and cobblers of Old Street Station. Just arrived on the Northern line, F is the new pop-up store from…
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“The Money of Colour”
Put your profits in the black, the blue, the green, the fuschia and even the red, but avoid a retail life of grey… As the most emotional tool in the armoury of retailers, brands and manufacturers it is still sometimes surprising how little strategy lies behind the use of colour. And for sure the ways…
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