Category: location strategy
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Vans West End: Owning & creating a customer destination
in branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, footwear, in-store services, internationalisation, leisure & sport, location strategy, new retail, product development, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail strategy, shop of the future, space management, space planning, store experience, store layout, store theatre, visual merchandisingThe brave & extraordinary Vans West End is a shop, a skate-park, an exhibition and a concert venue. Within this complexity it has a simple message for retail brands. “Customer community & loyalty must come through more than just selling product. It must come through ‘owning’ something which is central and essential to your customer…
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‘Making the most of the winter blues?’ IKEA have it in the bag!
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, food & drink, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, packaging, personalisation, pop-up stores, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail strategy, sales promotions & events, shop of the future, store experience, store theatre, telling product stories, town centre planning, visual merchandising, windowsIKEA is so much more than a retailer of things. It is a business driven by a philosophy of innovation and ideas, and not least, a dry Scandinavian sense of humour. The brand will magnificently be seen in all of its glory soon, when it opens its London West End flagship store in Oxford Circus,…
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No.04: Set your key shop parameters, to cover your costs, and drive your shop profitability – ’52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’.
in analytics, assortment structure planning, high street planning, location strategy, multi-category, omni-channel retailing, retail management, retail strategy, space management, space planning, store experience, store layout, store operations, store operations compliance, value retailing, visual merchandising operations, vm compliance, vm operationsPost No.04 in the weekly newsletter series: ‘52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’ You too can have ‘The Perfect Shop’ by this time next year! We’ve talked about options/sqm as being the most important quantitative parameter when we consider the task of creating a commercially successful shop. Will you have enough density of options to…
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2025: A year to safeguard your trust and keep your customers safe.
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, brave-words, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, food & drink, health & beauty, high street planning, in-store services, leisure & sport, location strategy, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, personalisation, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experienceJanuary is not many people’s favourite month of the year, unless you work for a credit card business, I guess. But the start to 2025 has been a particularly bad one, with horrendous fires in Los Angeles and Ghana, and our own problems with flooding and storms closer to home. Of course, there are always…
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Swimming with the current: Gymshark’s coffee conversations
As you may already be aware I am a huge fan of Gymshark, the gym wear producer and retailer. There are so many things to learn from the rags to riches business that began in a garage 10 years ago and is now valued at over $1 billion. I’ve been following their press during their…
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No.02: What customer perceptions about your brand do you want your new shop to change? – ’52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’
in analytics, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer-engagement, location strategy, meaning in the retail madness, pop-up stores, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store theatrePost No.02 in the weekly newsletter series: ‘52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’ You too can have ‘The Perfect Shop’ by this time next year! The second stage of preparing our vision for our new shop is to consider the customer, both existing and potential new ones. Certainly if you are a pureplay entering the…
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Moving from ‘Retail location planning’ to ‘Customer location planning’
in analytics, assortment structure planning, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, high street planning, internationalisation, location strategy, meaning in the retail madness, multi-category, new retail, omni-channel retailing, product suppliers, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, store operations, sustainability, town centre planning‘Channel’ is already becoming an obsolete word. Customers and retailers are connecting via an array of ‘Shopping touchpoints.’ These ‘shopping touchpoints’ will continue to be a fusion of traditional and new shop formats and customer ‘lifestyle locations,’ across digital and physical worlds. Retailers themselves will not be the ones to decide which channels to offer…
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Bike Shed Motorcycle Club: Revving up Community
in assortment structure planning, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, fashion accessories, food & drink, footwear, health & beauty, in-store services, internationalisation, leisure & sport, location strategy, menswear, multi-category, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail organisations, retail strategy, social savvy, store experience, store theatre, telling product storiesThe lessons for us all: “You can teach people how to be successful at retailing, if they have the passion. But it’s much more difficult to teach ‘Passion’ even to people who know how to buy & sell. People really love to buy passion, today!” The Bike Shed Motorcycle Club started in November 2011 as…
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House of Hackney: Home for inspiration.
in accessories, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, luxury, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, retail, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store layout, store theatre, sustainability, telling product stories, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “To build a beautiful retail proposition that engages and attracts remarkable loyalty and trust, a business must move beyond product and price, no matter how attractive. Beauty and loyalty now come through the incarnation of a mission, of values and qualities that are expressed through product, people, environments and actions.”…
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House of Hackney: Inspirational Pinterest gallery
in accessories, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, luxury, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store layout, store theatre, sustainability, telling product stories, visual merchandisingIn a Victorian townhouse in London Fields, Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle first dreamed up home furnishings & furniture brand House of Hackney. Today, the team has grown to a family of artists, designers, producers and collaborators. The brand now sells across the globe, with a showroom in New York and partner retailers worldwide.…
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For everyone looking to improve their physical shops,
or even thinking of opening their first pop-up or permanent shop,
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You too can have ‘The Perfect Shop’ by this time next year!