Category Archives: Retail

Just like Westfield

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Design and detail well a great big shed. Build it to last, not to leak and be flexible.

Invite multiple retailers in to lease a patch of space. Clump them into similar offers. All the butchers go together, so its easier to shop.

Give them free reign to be themselves as a business.

Apply some basic rules on space, height restrictions and signage but otherwise loosen your control within these rules to allow for the human/brand character to come through.

Not that much different from the modern shopping centre. I suspect Halifax market was initially controlled every bit as much as any new shopping centre is. Rigid rules on all elements that make up each stall/trading space.

Over time, Halifax market has become less of a centre for economic wealth in the town. Its slipped off the radar of the style police and is all the better for it.

The market feels alive, not sterile and manicured like your local shopping centre. Not contrived or used as a exercise in how companies can out design each other. Its all pretty cheap and pragmatic. I love how the old rules are starting to melt under layers of cabling, signage and other elements.

And if the market fades which I hope it doesn’t, the building is still there, a loose fit structure that could accept pretty much any use.

So the idea of the shopping centre was never that new. Halifax market will have displaced other local traders, and forced a shift in the fabric of the town, but it did at least stay in the town and provide a focus for trade. It dealt with the inclement weather of the Pennines but didn’t force people to travel across the county.

I am not a fan of the modern shopping centre and what they do to our cities but as a building type in some ways they are not much different from the traditional market hall, just bigger in scale to feed our voracious appetite for stuff. I

I wonder how the mega shopping centre will look in 100 years in a world of shopping on the web where we use our cars less due to the cost of fuel . The distribution centre (I’m thinking amazon) is already the new kid on the block.

It may be that the in-town market hall might well be prove to be the right balance between local and mass. Time will sort all that out.

Beyond Just a Product

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I’ve been working with Vivobarefoot, the original barefoot shoe company to establish themselves on the high street. Its been an exciting and educational experience working in this new area of footwear design.

Vivobarefoot is a small company with a very pure idea of how so called ‘barefoot’ shoes should be designed and made, and ultimately what they are for.

Unlike their more mainstream competitors, they are unconvinced by talk of ‘transistioning’ into shoes with no cushioning from what a customer might routinely wear now.

They believe that you should go as close to barefoot as you can straight away, hence their patented 3mm puncture resistant sole.

Their important point is that customers re-train their body to move naturally, as it was designed to do. This process obviously goes way beyond just buying a shoe.

The company is signaling its intent to provide a duty of care to its customers offering advice and direction on the skills they need to learn. This happens well before, during and well after the point of purchase.

The barefoot concept can be a complex and difficult proposition. There’s lots to take in and learn. The ideas and concepts behind skilled movement need to be delivered clearly.

The nearest space we could liken it to was that of the interpretive exhibit. A space where you can walk around gradually absorbing the narrative of a subject.

This space will develop further over time. The messages are simple and direct to start with. The customer experiences a one-on-one with a member of the shop team, who is a fully trained barefoot movement coach.

As the company moves forward, the space will become develop, evolving with the product and its customers. For now though, its a stripped out space, reflecting the market position of the products, No nonsense minimal footwear.

The achievement has been to do less, make it simple and tell a coherent story. In the world of retail design, where over-the-top and ostentatious spaces seem the norm for many right now, its been refreshing to execute simple, particularly where it relates to a clever young company, proud of its ecological stance to manufacturing.

Simple always works when you have a great story to tell. Its difficult if you have nothing innovative to sell in terms of products or service.

Thanks to Fernando at Shinerack in San Francisco for the very cool shoe display brackets. We had been looking for a way to show the innovative outsole for these products for some time.

http://www.shrinerack.com/store

Bar and Kitchen

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Friends of mine at Path Design have recently completed the Bishopsgate Kitchen, a great new tapas bar near London’s Liverpool Street.

The food is fantastic and the space feels great. Reclaimed timber and a lack of synthetic finishes give the scheme an atmosphere that many new projects lack. Often newness make for a sterile, too obviously designed experience. That coupled with no-one taking control and owning a space means many projects never achieve that magic lived in quality we all look for in buildings.

This space has a relaxed and open ended feel. You feel things are left to chance, for future development and experimentation. It strikes me that tapas might be a good analogy for building design. The endless combination and re-combination of ingredients and dishes. That’s pretty much how we make use of our spaces in real life.

Retail – Part Two

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GETTING REAL

So perhaps you’re a relatively small business. Perhaps your aim is to pinch a bit of market share. How do you go about taking your great idea to the high street, or any street.

I guess I could reel off a list of retail focuses or principles that you could follow in order to create your perfect store.

The obvious, but probably wrong idea is to try to emulate the big multinationals you most admire. You might scour the internet looking for great retail tips from industry insiders. Walk their stores to get ideas.

In the interests of research I did some hunting myself. Here’s some ‘tips’ I found. For some reason ideas in sets of four are popular.

-Location
-Location
-Location
-Location

-Shopfront/window
-Store Layout
-Ambience
-Category Management

-Top sellers first
-Navigation – Clear customer journey
-Secondary purchase or Up-selling
-Lighting

-‘Totality’
-Focal points
-Ease of shopping
-Flexibility

-Welcome/Invitation to enter
-Materials
-Layout and signage
-Visual Merchandising

-Supply chain value
-Experience
-Service
-People/Staff

-Brand expression
-Measurement and analysis
-Market relevance
-Graphic language

All great stuff here, but I reckon it probably wouldn’t help much. Too much jargon, Too generic. Too one size fits all. If you come to the market without a remarkable product or way of doing business at retail, then these lists are all you have to fall back on.

The point is, by being small, you can do things your bigger competitors can’t. The agile, change driven, cheap prototype mindset common to many small companies, is exactly the spirit to approach retail with.

Assuming you’ve developed a way to be disruptive in your market, the task of developing a unique trading space will be so much simpler.

Why not visit the tried and tested rulebook at the end instead. Use the industry standard as a benchmark for how far you’ve come when you look back. Focus on your ‘purpose idea’ and deliver the tricks of your bigger competitiors through the lens of your own talkable innovation. Forget about being big and concentrate on being truly outstanding. Big will come on its own later.

As a stand-out growing business, a better list of things to think about might relate to how you will deal with the growth your amazing idea will bring. What about thinking much longer term?

-How will you gear up to cope with volume?

-Do you have the supply chain systems in place and the inventory to keep you store full?

-Do you have an unrelenting focus on product design, quality and innovation that will drive the customer to keep coming back?

-If retail is partly about theatre, why would you put on the same show time after time. Can you design a space that will change over time?

-Could everyone in the company spend some time on the shop floor, communicating your idea and spreading the word? Shops should be about people and connection. How do you customers interact with your products? What can you learn?

-Don’t assume that the mass market has the same world view as your early adopters. They almost certainly won’t. How will your message and products need to change to address a new audience?

In my experience the transition from niche player to a more established proposition known by the masses often coincides with a need to ‘do’ retail. Perhaps its your first store or you are jumping from 1 or 2 shops to 10 or 20. It’s the hardest leap to make.

You will tread the fine line between losing the credibility of your devoted tribe, and gaining the appeal of a much broader audience. If you think longer term and look at your store as a research space, not just a distribution point, it can become and remain relevant as your company makes this transition.

Picture Above – Here’s as small business with a great idea, a solid online presence and shop that acts as a front for the main office and production facility. Nobrow might not need a further high street presence. Their space is simple. Its a gallery and that suits what they sell. They also turn it into an exhibition space for events to launch new products and ideas. The products are the prime focus.

If they grow however, they have to figure out how to keep the essence of what they have. A one on one with the owners, and the knowledge they hold about their business and their products is the most difficult thing to scale. Thats the magic of the existing shop. You need to avoid scripting the interaction between your people and your customers when you grow.

Retail – Part One

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TELL YOUR STORY

On a memorable holiday a few years ago, I stumbled across a small town while camping in the foothills behind St Tropez. All week my partner and I had been sampling local food and travelling the twisty roads through cork plantations, the smell of Mediterranean pine drifting on the breeze.

Travellers I think are a bit like shoppers. Both aim to try to get a handle on something, be it a place or a product. They try to make sense of things and to understand. They want a story that will explain what they are seeing. A good story that will justify their purchase or their trip. A story they can tell their friends about.

We came to a small hilltop town, with a bustling market in full swing. Here, the whole region came together for us. The people, the local food stalls, shops tucked into basements that flanked a small square, artists painting portraits, and a happy mix of residents and outsiders. To all of this was a backdrop of the towns buildings old and new that tracked the journey of this place over time.

This was a normal weekend for the locals, but for us, with images of the sterilised corporate highstreets of home in our heads, it was a revelation. Trade and commerce did more than just make money. It brought a whole community of people together.

The village described how selling and shopping, trade in essence was part of a bigger picture for this place. The landscape, produce, products, people and district came together. It was an experience of ‘totality’ (1) that any corporate retailer would be desperate to bottle. A seamless story without any awkward gaps.

This is a fanciful example right? This was small scale economic activity. Not the sort of trade that supports a scalable retail business. That’s not important here yet though. I know it doesn’t paint the full picture of food retailing in France, or anywhere near it. I use this example because its a powerful piece of storytelling and it hooked me.

The village of Ramatuelle did an amazing job of ‘marketing’ the St Tropez peninsula and its way of life. So did its shops, restaurants and stall holders. Everything about it was a perfect ‘fit’.

‘Marketing’ then is what your store should be about. Your goods might not be locally made but their design, their manufacture, and the story of how you brought them to market can be just as compelling, provided you have a genuine tale, that isn’t fabricated.

Ramatuelle was remarkable, at least to me. It stood out as different. The experience resonated because it told a truth, at least one that I wanted to hear. That local food production was still alive and well in Southern France. Never mind evidence to the contrary. The story was right for me at that time. The challenge for your business is to be amazing enough that you too can tell a story.

What’s the genuine purpose that drives your company? What’s your big idea, your amazing product, your revolutionary service? It might not be radical, but its got to be a ‘talkable innovation’ (2). This should be driving your store design and everything you do in it. Ideally this point of difference ‘is’ your store design.

If your company has a real ‘purpose idea’ (3) the story you tell will be real and authentic. It will help your potential customer get a handle on what you do. It will help them make sense of you. If you haven’t got a ‘purpose idea’ you need one.

Picture Above – I bought this bottle of olive oil in Ramatuelle. The shop was entirely devoted to the sale of olive oil. The owner spent 5 minutes with you, one on one. You went through the different types, like you would at a wine tasting. Not only did you come out with a bottle of your favourite, but you learn’t something about Olive oil. What was the higher purpose of this business? For me it was a sense of being educated. That was the free prize.

References;

1 – International Retail Marketing – A Case Study Approach – 2004 Edited by Margaret Burce, Christopher Moore, Grete Birtwistle

2 – Jon Jantsch – The Referral Engine

3 – Welcome to the Creative Age – Banana’s, Business and the Death of Marketing – 2002 – Mark Earls